


Missing Scenes for Season One

by danaheeroduomax



Series: Mutation Series [2]
Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Explicit Language, F/M, Gore, M/M, Racism, Violence, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-13
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2017-12-08 09:34:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/759854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danaheeroduomax/pseuds/danaheeroduomax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These are the scenes that either happened in the show that wasn't in the chapters, from my other story's in the series or that happened to the characters but we didn't get to see it on the show.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Missing Scenes to Days Gone Bye

**Author's Note:**

> Each chapter here is for a chapter I had put up for my series. It will continue what's going on and just show things that hadn't happened in the chapters, weather it was seen in the series or not, it's to add depth to the story and characters. This first chapter has three short stories of what happened with some of the other characters. So basically it's short stories in between all the other stuff. I hope ya'll enjoy and if you have any questions or comments please do. Oh a short disclaimer I don't own these characters or the show I'm just having fun and hoping that the people who read this enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> If anyone has ideas for mutations I'll be happy to hear them, for minor or major characters, oh the weirder the better, and it can be anything like your imaginations go wild.

 

Stranger on the Radio

Amy's POV

 

We were just relaxing doing our chores trying to keep busy after the last communications with the scavenger party, made on the CB radio Shane had brought with him. Most were sitting and talking, the rest were either on watch like Jim on top of Dale’s RV or working like myself, I had gathered firewood. I needed something to keep myself busy with my sister Andrea in Atlanta with the rest. It worried me, I was happy to hear from her last night and this morning, they would be on their way home soon. Then the radio turned on and someone a man sounded on it.

“Hello. Hello. Can anybody hear my voice?” He was trying to get in touch with us, with anyone out here. Dale was rushing to get it but I beat him there. It had grabbed everyone’s attention; I had dropped the wood I’d been carrying to run for the radio, picking it up quickly.

“Hey, Hello?”  I said hurriedly hoping that he could hear me, this was the first time anyone other than the scavenger party had made contact.  We were hoping to get more people, other survivors, after all safer in numbers right.  Though some in our camp can be just as dangerous as the walkers, the Dixons come to mind, I hate that Merle went with the scavenger party, he scares me.

“Can you hear my voice?”  He repeated, I wondered how far he was from us, and if he was alone or not, I also hoped he wasn’t like the Dixons, it seems that walkers can bring out the bad and good in people.  I prefer the good to the bad in all honesty.

“Yes, I can hear you.  You’re coming through, over.”  I told him, and then waited for a response.

“If anybody reads, please respond.”  He couldn’t hear me.  I wish I knew more about CBs but what could I do except try and talk hoping he could finally hear me.  There was quite a bit of static, maybe that was interfering.  “Broadcasting on emergency channel, will be approaching Atlanta on Highway 85.  If anybody reads, please respond.”

He can’t go to Atlanta it’s crawling with walkers.  “We’re just outside the city-“The radio crackles, “damn it, hello? Hello?”  I try to reach him again, with no success; I turn to Dale who’s standing a few feet from where I’m on my knees by the CB.  “He couldn’t hear me, I couldn’t warn him.”  It’s not my fault, right.  I silently ask myself.

“Try to raise him again.”  Dale suggests, Dale’s a nice kind man who has taken my sister and me under his wing, he’s become the father we lost when all this started.  Before, Andrea was all I had, but now we’re making friends who are becoming family in an impossible situation.  He turns to Shane and Lori.  “Come on, son, you know best how to work this thing.”  And it’s true Shane knows how to work the CB better than any of us.

He places the ax he’d been using to chop fire wood into a stump next to the CB, he takes it from my hand to try and raise the guy, warn him about Atlanta.  “Hello, hello.  Is the person who called still on the air?”  He asked, the radio continues to crackle.  “This is Officer Shane Walsh broadcasting to person unknown.  Please respond.”  We waited, and listened, I hoped, prayed even to hear his voice on the other end.  It was nothing but silence; I was disappointed, mad at myself even for being unable to reach him.  “He’s gone.”

“There are others, it’s not just us.”  Lori said trying to lift our spirits maybe, I didn’t know if that’s a good thing or bad, because in the deep recesses of my mind, all I can think is that the more people we get close to.  The worse it’s going to be when they die, if they die that is, by the walkers.

“We knew there would be, right?”  Shane reminded us, we can’t be the only ones who have survived is a topic that’s come up more than once around the camp fires.  “That’s why we left the CB on.”

“A lot of good it’s been doing.”  It has been doing good allowing us to stay in contact with Glenn and the others.  “And I’ve been saying for a week we ought to put signs up on 85 to warn people away from the city.”  Lori’s right, then this man this….Stranger on the radio wouldn’t be heading into Atlanta right now. I keep these thoughts to myself.

“Folks got no idea what they’re getting into.”  I say, it’s less harsh then telling Shane straight up that Lori is right.

“Well, we haven’t had time.”  That’s partly true we have been busy trying to keep camp and work out some order, the Dixon brothers haven’t helped, neither has Carol’s husband Ed, but it still should’ve been a priority to warn survives, lead them to camp where they could help and contribute.

“I think we need to make time.”  Sorry Lori, isn’t it a little too late, he’s headed there right now, no telling how close or far he was from the city, he could be getting eaten as we speak.  These thoughts start to depress me, I won’t be happy until Andrea’s back.

“Yeah, that—that’s a luxury we can’t afford.”  How is warning someone possibly saving their life a luxury, it should be a necessity, sometimes I think all Shane cares about is himself and Lori, he doesn’t seem to care for anyone else’s safety.  “We are surviving here, we are day to day.”  He reminds us.

“And who the hell would you propose we send?”  Dale asks Lori, it is true that it’d be a risk, I can’t say whether it’s a good risk or not, but I feel that saving a life, even just one, is better than letting a million lives die.

“I’ll go, give me a vehicle.”  Lori volunteers, how can she, she has a kid.  If anyone should go it should be someone who doesn’t have a kid, a life to protect and keep safe.  Like myself.

“Nobody goes anywhere alone, you know that.”  Shane said setting his foot down on the subject.  Shane can be unmovable as steel and expects everyone to do as he says, but in his defense he has been keeping us alive, creating order.

Lori walks off with a quick.  “Yes sir.” Shane’s direction, Carl her young son follows.

Shane moves to stop him.  “Hey, hey, hey.  Go on, take a seat, bud.  Your all right, go on, you’re all right.”  He tells Carl, who does as he’s told, he looks up to Shane, it’s so easy to see.  And I don’t blame the kid, losing his father; it must be hard on him right now.  I go back to my chores hoping to forget that poor man possibly dying out there.

* * *

Nothing but chit chat.

 Shane's POV

 

I run after Lori, she’s not happy about what I said.  It’s been difficult with Rick gone and the dead trying to eat us, I can understand that.  What I don’t understand is why she wants to risk her life to save some guy on the radio from going to Atlanta, a complete stranger.

“What, you pissed at me?”  I asked as I walked after her, after telling Carl to stay with the rest of the group.  We had gone around to where the tents are set up, hidden by the trees and plastic canvases that have managed to grow in the past couple of weeks.  She doesn’t answer as she angrily goes into the tent she shares with Carl.  I still call after her.  “You can be pissed at me all you want.  It’s not gonna change anything.”

She has her back to me still, it’s clear she’s upset by the way she’s standing, “I’m not putting you in danger, okay?”  Can’t she understand that all I care about is her and Carl, ever since Rick got put in the hospital and then the walkers that all I’ve wanted to do was care for her, growing to love her and Carl more each day.  I love Lori so much that sometimes I can’t breathe it hurts so bad to think of them getting hurting.  “I’m not doing it for anything.  That make you feel like sometimes you want to slap me upside the head—tell you what, girl: you feel that need, you go right ahead.  I’m right here, go on.”  She’s still not looking or talking to me.

She finally turns around, so we’re face to face.  “You cannot walk off like that, all half-cocked.”  She’s not happy I can see it written on her face, but she needs to understand.  “Look, you do not want to do it for my sake or your sake, that’s fine.  But just—you do it for him.”  I remind her that Carl still needs his mother; he already lost his father he doesn’t need to lose her to.  It’s dangerous out there, she needs to think, and realize that she’s safer here with me.  “That boy has been through too much, and he’s not losing his mother too, okay?”  I ask her.

She nods, the understanding of the situation reaching her eyes, but she still needs to answer my question, let me know that she gets it now.  “Okay?”  I ask again hoping to get a vocal answer this time.

“I’m a good mom.”  That’s still not the answer I’m looking for.  No one’s questioning her parental ability, I certainly am not.

“You tell me ‘okay.’”  She nods more fervently then before, she still doesn’t say it thought.  “Hmm?”  I chuckle slightly as I bite my lip the tension in the room lessoning.  I can’t hide the love for her in my eyes.  “It’s not hard.”  I tell her, its two syllables, but I let it go.  “Alright? Hey.”

She slips her fingers in my belt pulls me in as she comes foreword our lips meet in a kiss, my hand comes up, a cap I’d forgotten about still in my fingers as I grab the back of her head and show that all’s forgiven and forgotten in that one kiss as our tongues twirl each other, tasting and mapping out the concave of our mouths.

We break up as Carl’s voice is heard outside headed for the tent, “Mom?”  It’s pretty obvious he thought we were gone too long.  I look out the slight opening of the tent flap and see his feet, I push it open and walk out with Lori still in the tent behind me.  “What’s up, bud?  She’s in there, go on.”  I tell him before walking off as if nothing but chit chat had been going on.

* * *

Free of Homework

 Carl's POV

 

Shane ruffles my hair as he walks off after telling me Mom’s in the tent.  We’ve been here for a while; I’ve sort of a lost track of time with no school, or TV, or homework.  I’m kind of happy about that last part.  I headed to the tent I’ve been sharing with Mom which kind of sucks but with all the death I’ve seen recently I can understand, incase we’re attacked she wants to know I’m close by.  We haven’t seen anyone, Glenn calls them Geeks or Walkers, I prefer walkers to be honest, since we set up camp here.

Mom meets me at the entrance of the tent, kneeling down to my eye level.  “Hey, I don’t want you to worry.  Your mama’s not going anywhere, okay?”  That’s good to hear, I had been scared that she was going to leave me, like dad did.  I know Shane’s said it wasn’t his choice and I get that, I still miss him though, and I cry when I’m alone or mom’s asleep.  It’s hard not to be sad when my friends and family are dying around me.

I nod my head with hers.  “Yeah, yeah?”  She says with a small smile, it makes me feel better to see her smiling.  At least we still have each other.  “Go finish your chores.”  She tells me.

“Okay.”  I run off to do them; I still have chores even though it’s pretty much the end of the world as we know it.  I thought that if the world ever did end I’d be finished with chores along with anything else I didn’t like doing.  Oh well, at least I'm free of homework that’s a plus.


	2. Missing Scenes for Guts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have a beta reader so all the mistakes made were my own.
> 
> I also don't own any of the characters I'm just having fun with them.

Guilt

 Lori's POV

 

A few hours after the radio from the stranger everyone was back doing their thing; I was working on cooking over a camp fire.  Shane was off in the woods somewhere, Carl was playing with some toys near our car and Amy was walking up to me with a pale in her hand.  “Any luck?”  I asked, she was out picking mushrooms.

“How do we tell if they’re poison?”  She asked.

“Uh, there’s only one sure way I know of.”  I said as I’m looking at one of them feeling it with my fingers, rubbing some dirt off.

“Ask Shane when he gets back?”  Amy asked as she stirs the pot I have on over the fire.

“Yeah, you’ve got it.”  I told her.  I take the red pale Amy had just brought me that had the mushrooms in them after being poured into a small silver bowl.  Which was now resting down near the camp fire, I stood up and headed off as I got debris out of the pale.  “Thank you.”  I say before walking away to look for more to add to the stew we’re making for lunch.

“Dale, I’m heading out.  Sweetheart, I want you to stay where Dale can see you, okay?”  I asked Carl as I look at him playing with a toy monster truck.  Dale’s kind and responsible and cares about us, he’s taken Amy and Andrea in as his own daughters.  He’s an older gentleman who seems to like the company and feel needed when he looks out for us on top of his RV, which is where he was at the time.

“Yes, Mom.”  Carl answered.

“You too, don’t wander too far.”  Dale told me, I understood he worried and cared, Shane use to say that’s a weakness, sometimes I wondered if my husband were alive would he have done what Shane did.  Keep us all here, set up as if we’re on one big camping trip instead of hiding scared every night that the Walkers would leave the city and find us.  I honestly didn’t know.

“Stay within shouting distance, and if you see anything holler I’ll come running.”  Dale finished as I look at him.

I turn and mutter to myself.  “Yes, Mom.”  I headed into the woods away from everyone, some time to myself, to think and sometimes not to think to just be.

I see some mushrooms on the ground and get down to pick them when I hear leaves crunching off somewhere.  I hope it’s either Shane or Daryl coming back, thought I hope it’s not Dixon the brothers have been nothing but asses since they joined our group.  Then a thought comes to me, what if it’s a Walker finally coming up into the hills.  I hear birds take off and that’s pretty normal they leave at the drop of a hat, real skittish things.

Once I finished picking that bunch I get up and headed deeper in to find more.  Trying to keep my calm and not be spooked.  I hear a twig snap behind me I spin to look, I don’t see anything more twigs snap.  I’m getting ready to take off when I turn and a hand suddenly covers my mouth and pushes me to the ground.  I grab his wrist I look up and see that it’s Shane; he’s shushing me as I get my breathing under control.

I slap his arm until he removes his hand then speak.  “You scared the hell out of me.”  I’m smiling so it’s clear I’m not mad at him.

“I bet, that’s what you get for keeping me waiting.”  He said, smiling at me.  “I was trying to be quiet, where you been?”  He asked

“Amy the mushroom queen, had to wait for her to get back.”  I informed him, or I would have been out in these woods sooner than now.  We’ve been doing thing for a few weeks now.

He leans down and kisses me, deeply, passionately; I kiss him back just as passionately.  With his hand in my hair I sit up from the ground separating from his lips and start working on his belt buckle.

“How much time do we have?”  He asked not stopping me, watching me.

“Enough.”  In my head I ask myself why I can’t stop, why did we start this.  Maybe it was grief, maybe stress, maybe fear; I think it was all of the above.  But the thing is that there is no good excuse for what we were doing.

It still didn’t stop me or him as he takes his shirt off, him needing this as badly as I do.  Once his pants are undone he starts working on mine as I laid back down.  He licks and kisses my belly, I let him, I enjoy it as I moan wanting more.  I take off my shirt, that’s when I see the ring, my husbands, Rick’s wedding ring.  I wear it on a chain that had my heart locket with Carl and Rick’s picture in it around my neck.

I grab it pulling it over my head, Shane and I both can’t have sex with it on as a reminder of who I use to be with, and who at that time we both thought was dead.  I placeed it on the ground, then went back to kissing Shane.

I slip my pants and panties down, he pulled his hard cock out and thrust in me I was so ready for him.  I moan and gasp as does Shane.  He thrusts in my moist heat that use to be for Rick, only for Rick, we had been having trouble before the dead started to rise, but I still loved him.

I still love him, even as Shane was in me I was thinking of Rick.  I kiss Shane’s bicep.  With his help I roll onto my stomach so he can go deeper, I thrust back as he goes forward we’re both panting and gasping and moaning and rushing before anyone suspects anything.  And when we’re through I’ll feel what I always feel every single time I do this with Rick’s ring in my sight, before I slip it back on and go around as if nothing had happened.  I’ll feel guilt.

* * *

 

Waiting for the Call

T-Dog's POV

 

As Glenn ran to help the guy on the horse we saw just a few minutes ago the rest of us.  Jacqui, Morales, Andrea and myself headed down into the store.  Morales grabbed a bunch of gear for the two of us to put on as I put the walkie in my pants.  We didn’t want to get bit, so we covered ourselves head to toe with the black padding in the store.

Jacqui and Andrea were going to wait inside, Dixon stayed on the roof, in my opinion I think he’s better away from people. He hasn’t been getting along with any of us, ever since him and his brother showed up they’ve been doing nothing but causing trouble, but I think Glenn has a thing for Daryl.

It’s not hard to figure out, he defends Daryl any time we talk bad about the Dixon brothers, plus I’ve noticed the looks he gives Daryl when he thinks no one’s watching.  Andrea’s seen it as well, she was holding her gun as we waited, we were all upset about this, going into the store and seeing all those Walkers outside the doors.  Until now they hadn’t noticed, I’m pretty sure Andrea’s using her fear to fuel her anger.

After several minutes past Jacqui had been praying while we waited, the call on the walkie came.  “I’m back, got a guest plus four geeks in the alley.”  Glenn said.  That was our queue to go and cover them so they can get inside to safety.  For now anyways.  Morales had gotten a couple of bats handing me one, then we ran out and started to clobber the geeks as Glenn and the new guy ran inside to safety, we followed after downing the two that had been the immediate threat.

* * *

 

Welcome to the big city.

 Morals' POV

 

Watching Officer Friendly take down Merle who’d been beating up T-Dog made me realize this is a guy you want on your side.  Once Merle was cuffed to that pipe and he’d thrown his cocaine off the roof I saw him walk to the other end and look out there.  With the girls tending to T-Dog and Glenn getting sick I figured I might as well welcome him to our group.

Merle was slinging insults as I followed, stopping at the ledge placing my hands on it and looking at him.  “You’re not Atlanta P.D.”  It was a statement not a question.  “Where you from?”  I asked.

“Up the road a ways.”  Was his answer.

“Well, Officer Friendly, from up the road a ways welcome to the big city.”  Thunder rumbled as we looked at the Walkers below.

* * *

 

Looting + Zombies = Surviving

 Andrea's POV

I watched Glenn and Morales go into the hole to find us away out of this store underground.  The new guy Rick and I headed to the front where the Walkers were trying to get in.  I guess I should apologize for aiming my gun at him and threatening to kill him, I had just been scared and angry.

I spoke up.  “Sorry for the gun in your face.”

“People do things when they’re afraid.”  He said understandingly.

“Not that it was entirely unjustified.”  I informed him.  “You did get us into this.”  I blamed him for the mess we are currently in, and I will stick to that blame until we’re all safe back at the camp with the others and my little sister Amy.

“If I get us out would that make up for it?” He asked.

“No, but it’d be a start.”  I honestly tell him.  I watch him and the Walkers outside.

“Next time though, take the safety off.”  He told me, that’s why he wasn’t scared of my gun in his face.  “It won’t shoot otherwise.”

“Oh.” I look at my gun in my hands.

“Is that your gun?”  He asked me as he puts his gun in his waist band at his back.

“It was a gift, why?”  He holds out his hand and let him take it.

“Little red dot means it’s ready to fire.”  He explains as he flips the safety off showing me what to do for next time.  When I really will need to use it.  “You may have occasion to use it.”  As if he’s reading my thoughts.

“Good to know.”  I’m thankful for the lesson, doesn’t stop the fear I can’t seem to keep out of my eyes as I look at him.

After several minutes later Rick was watching the doors I was looking around, I saw this necklace on display, it was gold with a small mermaid on it.  I couldn’t help but smile as I touched it.  I must’ve made a sound ‘cause Rick came over.

“See something you like?”  He asked standing next to me.

“Not me, but I know someone who would.”  I looked at him.  “My sister.”  I informed him.  “She’s still such a kid in some ways.  Unicorns, dragons, she’s into all that stuff.”  I’m looking at the necklace still in my fingers as I tell him all this.  “But mermaids, they rule.  She loves mermaids.”

“Why not take it?”  He asked.

I tilt my head to the side and look at him from the corner of my eyes.  “There’s a cop staring at me.”  I told him.  “Would it be considered looting?”  I asked.

“I don’t think those rules apply anymore.  Do you?”  I guess he was right; they didn’t, not when everyone is dead or undead and trying to eat you.  So I took it off its display and put it in my pocket.  That’s when we heard glass shatter, we ran to the doors, Rick in front his gun out, Morales, Jacqui and Glenn met us there.  The walkers had gotten passed the first set of glass doors.  After that conversation with Rick I stopped thinking what I’d been doing as looting, and started thinking of it as surviving. 

* * *

  

Roof Top Talk

 T-Dog's POV

 

“Anybody out there?”  I asked on the C.B.  Sitting on the roof across from Dixon trying to raise anyone on the radio, hopefully our camp.  I was left to it by the others when they headed downstairs to the underground Jacqui had been talking about.  I was still sore from the beating Dixon had dished out.  My lip had split and I’d had bruises where I never wanted bruises before.

“Anybody out there?”  I asked again.  “Hello, anybody read?  I’m hoping to hear somebodies voice ‘cause I’m getting sick and tired of hearing mine.”  All I got was static.

“Yeah, well that makes two of us.”  Dixon speaks up.  “Why don’t you knock that crap off?  You’re giving me a headache, boy.”  He tells me.  I’m thinking good, after what he did to me a headache’s the least of his problems being cuffed to this roof as he was.

“Why don’t you pull your head out of your ass?  Maybe your headache will go away.”  I threw back at him.  I hear him chuckle while I’m switching channels on the C.B. “Try some positivity for a change, man.”

“I’ll tell you what, you get me out of these cuffs and I’ll be all ‘Sammy sunshine’ positive for you.”  He tried.  “Hey, see that hacksaw over there, in that tool bag?”  I looked at him then the tool bag.  “Get it for me, hmm?  Make it worth your while.”  He bribed.  “What do you say man? Come on. Get me out of these things.”

“So you can beat my ass again?  Or call me Nigger some more?”  Fat chance, I thought.

“Come on now it wasn’t personal.”  Wasn’t Personal, it was damn personal to me, red neck sack of shit.  “It’s just that your kind and my kind ain’t meant to mix.  That’s all” Hearing that makes me feel more insulted then the nigger crack.  “Don’t mean we can’t work together.  Parley, as long as there’s some kind of mutual gain involved.”  This guy was unbelievable.  He waits a few seconds before trying again. “So…About that hacksaw.”

“I guess you want me to get that rifle over there too, so you can shoot that cop when he comes back up, huh?”  I asked.  He shut up after that.

* * *

 

Cuffed part 1

 Merel's POV

 

I’ve done some pretty dumb shit in my life, being who I am wasn’t one of them.  I’m an ass, I hate everybody and my brother is a better man than I am.  I knew that, But being left on the roof cuffed as they headed down to work on their other plan to get us out of this mess left me a lot of time to think.  I hate the ones from the camp and these idiots, he thinks I’m blind, I’m not, my brother and I are leaving the moment I get back and we take what we need, we’ll hit the road.

I see the door open and the others without the cop or chink run onto the roof.  “Hey, what’s happening, man?”  I asked them.

I’m ignored as the taco bender speaks to the nigger.  “Hey, T-Dog try that C.B.”

“Hey, come on talk to me, y’all.”  I tried again.  I don’t like being ignored or kept out of what’s going on when it’s my life on the line.

They ran to the ledge as T-Dog speaks on the radio again, sitting on the roof all cozy like.  “Base camp, this is T-Dog, anybody hear me?  Can anybody out there hear me?”

Morales is looking for someone, down below, I figure it out.  “That asshole is out on the street with the handcuff keys?”  I asked.  They plan to leave me here I knew it.

T-Dog pulls the key from his pocket and waves it at me.  So now my life’s been put in his hands I don’t think so, that’s messed up.  “Base camp, this is T-Dog.  Anybody hear me?”  T-Dog tried again.

Finally someone came through.  “Hello? Hello? Receptions bad on this end.  Repeat, repeat.”

“Shane, is that you?”  T-Dog asked.  “We’re in some deep shit.  We’re trapped in the department store.”  He informs them.  He continues to speak even though no one’s talking on the other end. “There are geeks all over the place.  Hundreds of them we’re surrounded.”  The rest is static, we’re cut off.

They keep watching, T-Dog keeps trying and I’m just cuffed here, then the rain starts.  Well we’re all up shit creek now.  “It’s just a cloudburst.  We get ‘em all the time it’ll pass real quick.”  Morales said trying to keep their hope alive.  Those two are already dead they just don’t know it yet.

I can hear the walkers below, sounds like they found food.  Morales muttering to himself I didn’t care what about as gun shots were going off 

“They’re leaving us.”  Sugar tits said.

“What? What? Where they going?”  I asked.

“No, no, come back.”  Andrea begged, her voice was fearful I’ve heard it many times from people begging me to stop beaten ‘em up.

After several minutes and looking as if we’d been abandoned the walkie came to life with the chink on the other end.  “Those roll up doors at the front of the store, facing the street meet us there and be ready.”

Morales was telling them to hurry as they started to grab their packs and run down to get out of here.  “Hey, you can’t leave me here!”  I screamed at them, they can’t do this to me.  “I’m not fooling man!  Morales!”  I keep yelling at them not to leave me.  I notice T-Dog stop.

“Hey, T-Dog, no man you can’t leave me, man.  You can’t leave me like this, you can’t man it’s not human.”   I pleaded to his better nature.  He must’ve finally decided to help me, as he turns back.  He kicks the tool box with the hacksaw over onto the ground on his way back to me.

Just as he puts the bag he’s caring down he trips, falls the key bounces on the roof and goes into a drain as we both try to reach for it.   “Son of a bitch! You did that on purpose.”  I yelled at him.

“I didn’t mean to!”  He lied to me.

“You lie!  You did it on purpose!”

“It was an accident!”  He said as he was heading to the door.  I kept yelling at him not to leave me here cuffed on this roof.

* * *

 

 

Bad News

 Dale's POV

 

I’m trying to change the radiator hose in my R.V again.  “Boy, that hose isn’t long for this world, is it?”  I ask Jim as I hand him the ratchet I’d been using.

“No sir.”  He says.  I like Jim he’s a good guy, laid back and real good mechanic to help with my R.V whenever it acts up which is all the time.

“Where the hell are we gonna find a replacement?”  I asked him.

Amy who’d been pacing for a while now speaks up.  “It’s late, they should’ve been back by now.”

I look at her then back at my engine.  “Worrying won’t make it better.”  I care about Amy and Andrea both like they were my own daughters.

With the women taking care of laundry and Shane teaching Carl how to tie a knot everything was going good, then the C.B came to life. “Hello, base camp, can anybody out there hear me?”

I climb on top of my R.V where the radio had been set up after the stranger called, the rest are running to hear as well.  “Base camp, this is T-Dog.  Anybody hear me?”

I pick it up. “Hello? Hello?  Receptions bad on this end.  Repeat, repeat.”

“Is that them?”  Lori asked. I was trying to clear up the static.

“We’re in some deep shit.  We’re trapped in the department store.”  He informed us, that was not good, Amy will deal with it, but my big concern was when Daryl Dixon gets back and his brother’s not here.

“He says they’re trapped?”  Shane asked.

“There are geeks all over the place.  Hundreds of them, we’re surrounded.”

“T-Dog, repeat that last, repeat.”  Nothing but static, they’re gone.

“He said the department store.” Lori says.

“I heard it too.”  I told her as I looked at all of them.

“Shane?”  She asked he cuts her off.

“No way, we do not go after them.  We do not risk the rest of the group, y’all know that.”

“So we’re just gonna leave her there?”  Amy was clearly upset at the idea of leaving her sister behind.

“Look, Amy I know that this is not easy.“ Shane tried to explain to her.

“She volunteered to go, to help the rest of us.”  Amy told him.

“I know, and she knew the risks, right?  See, if she’s trapped she’s gone, so we just have to deal with that.  There’s nothing we can do.”

“She’s my sister you son of a bitch.”  We all feel for her.  Lori runs off to comfort her as I try to get in touch with them again.

* * *

 

I Dropped The Key!

T-Dog's POV

 

All I can say as I run off the roof is I’m sorry, I never meant to drop the key, I wanted to help him.  He didn’t deserve to die like that.   I dropped the bags and grab the door closing it, I took the chain hanging up there and lock it off to keep the walkers out and buy him some time to figure a way off the roof, or for us to come back for him.  But right now I had to leave.

I was screaming for them not to leave me as I ran down the stairs, for them to wait that I was comin’.  I didn’t want to be left behind like I just did to Dixon.  I was running through the store when the last glass doors broke and the walkers came in right behind me.

“Hey, wait for me.”  I told ‘em as I ran to the doors making it just in time for Rick to bang on them for us to open.  We threw in our bags then jumped in as walkers came at us, then he took off, Morales closed the doors on the delivery truck we were in.

I sit behind the passenger seat as Morales takes it next to Rick, the girls behind the driver’s seat next to each other.  Everyone’s looking at me, Rick looked behind to see who’s all here I was sure, the girls and Morales were looking at me.  I could see the question on their faces.  “I dropped the damn key.”  I informed them.

“Where’s Glenn?”  Andrea asked.  A few seconds later, Rick just laughed.

“Probably having the time of his life.”  He told us.


	3. Missing Scenes for Tell it to the Frogs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own the show or the characters I'm just having fun with them.

Cuffed part 2

Merle POV

 

The thunder rumbled as I was cuffed on the roof of the department store that Nigger left me on.  _When I get free I’ll kill him and that cop, and beat the living hell out of the rest of them before Darylen and I leave with their stuff_.  I think this as I heard the walkers on the other end of that door.  “That’s right you heard me, bitch.  You got a problem?”  I said as I relieved a memory before the walkers and before being chained to this roof.  “Bring it on if you’re man enough, or take it up the chain if you’re a pussy.  You heard me you pussy ass noncom bitch, you ain’t deaf.”  I felt my head frying with the sun over it as I continually talked to myself.

“Take it up the damn chain of command, or you can kiss my lily-white ass.”  I started laughing, I was getting beat red stuck up here alone.  “That’s right, that’s what I said you heard me.  And then this idiot he takes a swing, you know, and well…”  I broke off my story as I laughed uncontrollably.  I was going insane that’s all.  “Oh, you should’ve seen the look on his face, when I punched out his front teeth.  Yeah, five of ‘em.  POW! POW! Just like that.”  I swung my arm across punching the air.

“Oh my God, sixteen months in the stockade, oh, that’s what them teeth cost me.  That was hard times, but by God it was worth every minute of it, just to see that prick spit his teeth out on the ground.”  I finished remembering my past, a past long gone.  I looked at my cuffed wrist for what felt like the hundredth time.  I started pulling repeating no over and over again as I pulled and yanked, kicking the pipe I’m cuffed to chaffing my wrist as the only thought was to get free and off this roof went through my burning mind.

I started begging God to help me, I got desperate and panicked and wild.  My wrist was bleeding and hurting and I didn’t care I just wanted to live.  I looked to the sky pleading with Jesus when the door opened a bit and I could see the walkers trying to get at me.  But they couldn’t, the doors had been chained.

I made myself small whispering no to myself as I crouched down shushing myself and crying curled up holding my cuffed wrist.  I started to beg again.  “Jesus I didn’t behave, I know I’m being punished, I know.  I—Oh, I deserve it, I deserve it, I’ve been bad.  Help me now show me the way, go on, tell me what to do.  Tell me, tell me, God!”  I banged my head against the cement of the roof, as I begged for this nightmare to end.

I looked up and decided to keep fighting as I rolled under the pipe on my back and reached for the tools again; I did it a little while ago and gave up. I grabbed my belt I’d taken off earlier as well and started to swing it trying to reach for something to get me out of these cuffs.  I started again ‘cause I wasn’t giving up.  “Never you mind silly Christ boy.  I ain’t begged you before; I ain’t gonna start begging now.  I ain’t gonna beg you now!”  I screamed at the sky above me.  “Don’t you worry about me begging you ever!  I’ll never beg you!  I ain’t gonna beg you!”  I threw the belt again trying to reach for the hand saw I could see just lying there.  I kept repeating to myself telling the heavens above I’ll never beg him not before and not now.

I heard the walkers trying to get to me, I heard them and that just helped keep me going, the need to survive, I looked at my wrist as I felt the pull of the cuffs on me keeping me from getting free.  I wasn’t gonna let it stop me from getting off this damned roof. 

* * *

 

They’re back

 Lori POV

 

Kids were playing, Jim had gone off to check the perimeter and I was giving my son Carl a haircut.    He was fighting it but it had to be done.  “Baby, the more you fidget the longer it takes, so don’t okay?”  I told him to try to get him settled down; he’ll get to go play as soon as I’m done.

“I’m trying.”  He said as I tilted his head, he was sitting on a rock in front of our camp while I was sitting on a lawn chair and Shane was across cleaning his shot gun.

“Well, try harder.”  I told him.

“You think this is bad wait till you start shaving.”  Shane told him.  “That stings, that day comes you’ll be wishing for one of your mama’s haircuts.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.”  Carl told him, he looked up to Shane it was easy to see, I just wish sometimes that his dad had been there.  I smiled as I heard Shane chuckle, during these moments it was easy to forget why we’re up here and what’s happened in the last couple of months.

“Tell you what, you just get through this with some manly dignity and tomorrow I’ll teach you something special.”  That got Carl’s attention, Shane continued.  “I will teach you to catch frogs.”

“I’ve got a frog before.”  Carl told him.

“I said frogs, plural.”  Shane informed.  “And it’s an art my friend it is not to be taken lightly.”  Shane was in the grove of telling Carl all there was to frog catching.  “There are ways and means few people know about it.  I’m willing to share my secrets.”

Carl turned his head and looked at me as if expecting me to say something about all this.  “Oh, I’m a girl you talk to him.”  I informed Carl, frog catching I will have no part of.  I turned his head back to continue cutting.

Shane laughed then continued.  “It’s a one-time offer bud, not to be repeated.”  Shane informed him as he was using a small brush to get into the creases of the shot gun to get all the dirt and grime and things that can make it jam at important moments.

“Why do we need frogs, plural?”  Carl asked.

“You ever eat frog legs?”

“Eww!”  Was Carl reaction.

“No, yum!”  Shane said.

I had the same reaction.  “No, he’s right, eww.”

“Why you get down to that last can of beans, you’re gonna be loving those frog legs lady.”  Shane was probably right he usually was about these things.  He started mimicking me.  “I can see it now-‘Shane, do you think I can have a second helping, please, please? Just one.’”

I looked at him, “Yeah, I doubt that.”  He was smiling and giggling, that’s right I said it, he was giggling like a little girl.  Though I’d never said that to his face, I just thought it.

“Don’t listen to her, man.” He told Carl, “you and me we’ll be heroes we’ll feed these folks Cajun-style Kermit legs.”

“I would rather eat Miss Piggy.”  I informed him.  “Yes that came out wrong.”  He laughed.  He was still helping to distract Carl with more stuff, I was thankful and I didn’t care what it was about but Carl had stopped fidgeting.

“Here’s son, spoken of in song and legend.  You and me, Shane and Carl.”  Suddenly we heard a car alarm, that grabbed Shane’s attention.

I kept a hand on Carl as Shane grabbed his now clean shot gun and headed to the noise calling out to Dale on what he sees from the roof of his RV where he’d been posted the last couple of hours.

“I can’t tell yet.”  He told Shane, I heard him as Carl and I stood to see what it was as well.  One of the other men in our camp was yelling at Dale to get a good look at it.

“Is it them?  Are they back?”  Amy asked hopefully as we walked up behind her.  The camp was abuzz with hope and fear.  Dale muttered something Amy asked, she must’ve heard what he’d said.  “What is it?”

“A stolen car is my guess.”  Dale informed us.

With my arm on Carl and my other hand shielding my eyes from the burning sun above us I kept a watch to see who was coming.  It was a red sports car that was driven up fast and Glenn got out.  It was good to see that he made it back but what about the rest.

“Holy crap, turn that damn thing off!”  Dale yelled at him, the noise was a big dinner bell to any walkers who could’ve heard it.

“I don’t’ know how!”  Glenn told him with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Pop the hood, please.-“  Shane told him before Amy interrupted.

“My sister Andrea-

“Pop the damn hood please.”  Shane asked again aggravated this time.  Glenn looked at him.

“What?-“Glenn asked trying to hear him.

“Pop the damn hood!”  Shane yelled at him that time banging on the car.

“Okay, okay.  Yeah-“Glenn kept saying okay and yeah as he got back in the car and poped the hood with Amy next to him trying to get answers about her sister.

“Is she okay?  Is she all right?”

Glenn finally answered her while getting back out of the car.  “She’s okay! She’s okay!”  We’ve all started to gather around him trying to get answers.

“Is she coming back?”  Amy started to bombard him with questions thankfully at that time Shane and Jim got the alarm turned off.

“Yes!”

In a lower voice.  “Why isn’t she with you?  Where is she?  She’s okay?”

“Yes.  Yeah, fine everybody is.  Well, Merle not so much.”  Glenn had his hands on the door of the red car as he explained what went down in Atlanta.

Shane was clearly upset as he asked.  “Are you crazy driving this wailing bastard up here?  Are you trying to draw every walker for miles?”

Dale spoke up to get some heat off of Glenn.  “I think we’re okay.”

“You call being stupid okay?”  Shane wasn’t going to let it go.  Dale answered him.

“Well, the alarm was echoing all over these hills, hard to pinpoint the source.”  Shane turned at him giving a look that I’d gotten use to from him.  “I’m not arguing I’m just saying.”  Dale turned to Glenn then pointing his finger at him so he knew that Dale was addressing him.  “It wouldn’t hurt you to think things through a little more carefully next time, would it?”

“Sorry.”  Glenn said, he looked guilty then said.  “Got a cool car.”  Just as everything had calmed down a delivery truck of some kind come driving up.  We all looked at it; it must be the rest of the scavenger party, minus Merle if I heard correctly, were my thoughts at the time.

The first one out of the truck was Morales from the cab and then Andrea; I see her show up from the back.  “Amy.”  Was her greeting as she headed to her sister.

“Andrea!”  Cried Amy as she ran to her sister after thinking for a while now that she was died or dying.  We were happy about the reunion.  I just wished these things wouldn’t upset me so much, the fact that Carl and I won’t get that with his father was saddening to the both of us.

Their embrace was touching and I was happy for them both, truly I was.  Seeing the Morales family together was touching as well, watching the kids jump into their father’s arms.  I couldn’t do it anymore.  I turned around taking Carl with me.  “Come here, sweetie.”  We needed to talk again, he was always getting his hopes up and I always had to dash them.

Carl was crying and I was trying to calm him down, tell him that it was alright and that he had Shane and I to take care of him.  That I loved him and I always would, I told him I missed his daddy to.  Then a miracle happened, Carl turned and I looked and there he was just standing there, I couldn’t believe it, it was like seeing a ghost but he was real when he held Carl, when he held me.  I cried with him and Carl happy tears the first time I was truly happy since the shooting was when Rick held us and we were together again as a family.

* * *

 

Confused

 Daryl POV

 

As the day progressed my thoughts about what Glenn had said, his motives behind it and if it was true or not wasn’t getting any better.  In fact the more I thought about him, the more I hated him, before this, before him, I knew what I wanted.  I wanted to survive with Merle and keep my secret, just that a secret.  Merle didn’t know I was gay, only one other person knew, he knew before I did, Jess.  My father’s half-brother.  But after meeting Glenn, I started getting confused; these feelings I thought I’d buried long ago were starting to rise up.  I hated feeling anything but anger, it was a weakness in my family’s eyes.

But Glenn showed up in my life, he followed me and kissed me and I kissed him back and truth was I liked it, better than any other guy I’d ever been with.  The only other guy that came closest to how I felt for Glenn was my next door neighbor.  While working, or drinking, or sitting on the hood of my truck with a cold one I’d be watchin’ my neighbor mowing his lawn.  Every Saturday during the summer, it’s one of the things I miss, use to miss.

I knew who I was after the last time Merle was arrested, I stopped fooling myself thanks to Jess, before the dead started to eat people that is.  He came over one Saturday afternoon, Frank was his name, back then I wasn’t good with words, I still have problems with it.  Bbut Frank could talk.  Then we kissed, several times we made out and the week after we’d had sex I went on a hunting trip, that’s when the dead rose up and started eating people, I thought of going to see him, if he was still alive but I.  I never did, I regretted it back then, and maybe that’s why I didn’t want to love or to be loved by Glenn because I loved Frank and I lost him.  I loved my mother and I lost her, and my father, uncle Jess, I loved Merle.  Everyone I loved ended up dying.  I know without a doubt that if Frank was a Walker, I’d shoot an arrow in his head without any hesitation.  Now ask me if I could kill Glenn as easily as I could kill him, you would never live to regret that question.  No one ever caught my eye like that Korean did, back when I called him Chinaman and treated him like shit, not even Frank.  On to what was going on outside my head.

I tracked that deer all day and well into the night, before I even realized it was night.  So get this, I was tracking and I knew it should’ve been getting dark so I looked up and there was the moon, well over head.   I could see in the dark as if it was clear as day, it was the weirdest and wildest thing I’d ever experienced.  I was tired though and I saw it across in a pasture of the woods, it had decided to get some shut, so I thought I would to.

I sat and laid against a tree my bow in my lamp just in case.  While I had been tracking her I did pick up several squeals.  As I settled for the night, I hadn’t realized that in the coming weeks I’d find that that’s not the only freaky thing about me or my soon to be friends.  I mean Glenn, fastest and most agile kid I know, now, like a cat.  In the mean time I got comfy, with bow in hand, I got a little shut eye while still being alert as I also noticed that I was picking up even the slightest of wind changes with my hearing.  Something weird was going on that night, and it, was just the beginnin’.  It and my feelings were confusing the hell out of me. 

* * *

 

Why?

 Daryl POV

 

Glenn and I headed to the delivery truck they’d piled in to get out of the city, Glenn got behind the wheel so he could back it up I sat in the passenger seat.  “Why?”  I asked.

Glenn looked at me a little clueless, “Why what?”  He turned the engine on and started to back it up.

“Why’d you tell Shane not to hurt me?”  He looked at me like he thought I hadn’t heard.

“I don’t know Daryl, it just came out, I care about you.  We’ve been—fucking for a while now, I’m not good at keeping my feelings out of it.  I’m not as closed off as you, so when Shane was holding you in that choke hold I couldn’t help myself, I didn’t want you hurt.”  I placed my hand on his cheek, just looking in his eyes for the truth; I didn’t see deception or anything that would indicate he was lying to me, I brushed my thumb over his lips and down his chin before I let him go.

He stopped the truck, I moved to the back and stood there as we waited for Rick and T-Dog to get the bolt cutter so we could go get my brother.  I got a little impatient as I honked on the horn in front of Glenn and yelled at them.  “Let’s go.”

* * *

 

Nothing’s Killed Him

 Lori POV

 

After I watched Rick and the others leave in that delivery truck I headed to the tent I’d been sharing with Carl, he’d gone to the tent not wanting to see his father go on this crazy rescue mission for a man no one’s gonna miss.  I slipped off my brown boots before stepping into the tent and walked over to the cot Carl was lying on.  I sat down next to him squeezing his arm comfortingly to get his attention.  I said. “Hey.”  I sniffled a bit before continuing.  “You know I bet they’ll be just fine.”  I told him.

“I’m not worried.”  Carl’s been brave his whole life, he was braver then I was when I found out my husband had been shot, it was everything afterword’s that got to him and me.  He rolled over and looked at me with his head propped up on his hand.  “Are you?”  He asked me.

“Yeah, a little.”  I honestly told him.

“Don’t be.”

“Why?”  I asked.

“Think about it, mom.  Everything that’s happened to him so far—nothing’s killed him yet.”  I couldn’t help but chuckle at that.  He was right.  I moved to hold his free hand.

* * *

 

Search for Carl

 Lori POV

 

“Dale, have you seen Carl?”  I asked, it had been a few hours since the guys left and I was gathering fire wood when I realized I hadn’t seen Carl in a little while I started to get worried, so I gone to Dale, looked up at him while blocking the sun with my hand.  He’d been on his R.V keeping watch.

“Shane took him down to the Quarry.”  The quarry was a good place to fish and wash the clothes and get water to boil so we could have something to drink.  Dale continued. “There was some mighty bold talk about catching frogs.”  That reminded me of the conversation they were having yesterday afternoon before the scavenger party showed up with Rick.  For some reason it angered me that Shane took Carl without my okay as if he was his father.  I headed down there to face Shane, and put an end to what we’d been doing.  It also made me mad that Carl disobeyed me I told him not to leave Dale’s sight.

* * *

 

Confrontation

Shane POV

 

I’d taken Carl down to the Quarry to catch some frogs, the women were nearby washing clothes; Ed had decided to watch them and keep guard should any Walkers show up and attack.  I thought it was a bad idea but as long as he didn’t do anything I wasn’t going to bother with it.  “I’m not getting anything.”  I heard Carl say, I looked at him then instead of the women.

“Yeah, being all willy staying submerged.  Little suckers they know something’s up, that’s what’s going on.”  I told him, I wanted to make it fun for him, get his mind off the fact that his dad left to save some asshole.  “Just going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.”  I said as I took the gray bucket in my hands and walked out into the water.

He was watching me and listening as I continued to speak teaching him how to do this frog catching thing.  “All right little man, look.  You are the—you are the key in all this, okay?”  He was nodding as I turned to him a good several inches in the water now.

“All I’m gonna do is I’m gonna go after one of them, all right, scare the rest of them off.”  I gripped the mouth of the bucket in my hands and lowered myself as I continued to instruct what was gonna go down.  “They’re all gonna scatter I’m gonna drive ‘em your way.”

“All right.”  He answered.

“What you need to do is you need to round up every bad boy you see all right?  Are you with me?”  I asked as I bent my knees preparing to scare those frogs Carl’s way. 

“Yeah.”

“Hells yeah.”  I told him he answered back with a louder.

“Yeah.”

“Give me your mean face.”  We both made mean faces and growled.

“Yes sir, are you ready?”  I asked.

“Yeah.”  I stretched my arms then looking at him we both had smirks and smiles on our faces as I went in the water with the bucket and started throwing water his way.  Telling him they’re coming his way, getting all wet splashing water and he was trying to catch those frogs with the net I’d given him.

For several minutes I was splashing the water his way telling him to get down there and get him the frogs were coming his way.  I finally stopped and asked him what he got.  He lifted up the net and it was empty, not a single frog.

“Dirt.”  He said.

“Oh boy, all right we’ve got to start over.  Come on, let’s find this bucket.”  I told him we laughed as we searched.  We tried a few more times coming up empty each time.

“Hey, Carl.”  Lori said as she walked up to us several minutes after our failed attempts to catch frogs, we were sitting on the rocks drying off.  “What did I tell you about not leaving Dale’s sight?”

“But Shane said we could catch frogs, remember?”  Carl asked. 

“It doesn’t matter what Shane say’s it matters what I say.  Go on back to camp.”  She informed him calmly without raising her voice.  Carl sighed as he got up and headed off.  “I’ll be right behind you.”  Lori told him.

I couldn’t keep my mouth shut as she started to walk off.  “I’ve got to tell you, I do not think you should be taking this out on him.”  I wasn’t blind; I could see that her attitude had changed after Rick got back.

“You don’t tell me what to do, you lost that privilege.”  She informed me.

I stood up then and headed over to her as I said.  “Lori, could you just wait up a second?  I think we should talk we haven’t had a chance—“  She interrupted me.

“No, no, no.  That’s over too.  You can tell that to the frogs.”

That made me mad, I tried to keep my cool but it didn’t stay completely out of my voice as I spoke.  “Damn it, Lori.  Look I don’t know how it appears to you or what you think—“She interrupted again.

“How it appears to me?   I’m sorry.  Is there a gray area here?”  She asked as she walked back to me.  “Let me dispel it.  You stay away from me; you stay away from my son.  You don’t look at him you don’t _talk_ to him.”  She counted on her fingers the things I wasn’t to do with her or her family.  “From now on my family is off-limits to you.”

“Lori, I don’t think that’s fair.”  I told her.

That pissed her off as she got in my face.  “Shane, shut _up._   Don’t!”  She said as she slapped me.  “My husband is back, he is alive. “  She turned and started back to camp again

“He’s my best friend.”  I told her.  “Do you think I’m not happy about that?”  She got right in my face a second time after that.

“How _dare_ you, why would you be?  You are the one that told me that he _died.”_ I couldn’t say anything to that; she was right on that point.

She turned for the last time back to camp with a.  “You son of a bitch.”  Thrown at me.  After grabbing the stuff I walked to the dirt road, I watched her catch up to Carl and walk back to camp with him, I had bucket and pole net in one hand, shot gun in the other slung on my shoulder.  I was angry and upset with Lori so when I heard Ed and saw what he was doing to Andrea and the other women it gave me the perfect thing to take my anger out on as I headed over.

* * *

 

I Still Love Him

Carol POV

 

Amy, Andrea, Jacqui and I were washing the clothes.  I heard Jacqui as she was coming back with Andrea, “I’m beginning to question the division of labor here.”  The boy Carl Lori’s son was with that cop Shane trying to catch frogs by the sounds of it not too far from where we were working.  Jacqui was still going on after the boys quieted down some.  “Can someone explain to me how the women wound up doing all the Hattie McDaniel work?”

“The world ended didn’t you get the memo?”  Amy asked she was next to me as she scrubbed at the clothes on a washboard.  I looked back at my husband Ed then, he was just sitting there on the bed of his truck watching us.  I turned to Jacqui then handing her some wet clothes from my own washboard between my legs.

“It’s just the way it is.”  I said.   With only two washboards Andrea was using a scrub brush, looked a little like the ones I use to use on the bath tub.  “I do miss my Maytag.”   I said.  It is nice having girl time, I didn’t get that a whole lot before the apocalypse came knocking on our door.

“I miss my Benz, my Sat Nav.”  Andrea said.  It went around to Jacqui next.

“I miss my Coffeemaker, with that dual-drip filter and built-in grinder, honey.”

“My computer…”  Amy said next.  “And texting.”  I’ll never forget what Andrea said after her.

“I miss my Vibrator.”

“Oh!”  Jacqui sounded with interest, as she looked at her.

Amy laughed as she stated. “ _Oh my God!_ ”

I looked a couple of ways making sure no one else was listening especially Ed.  “Me too.”  I told them quietly.  That got them laughing and then I joined in. 

Ed was walking down smoking a cigarette as he asked.  “What’s so funny?”

“Just swapping war stories, Ed.”  Andrea said.  We were all looking at him.

“Yeah.”  I murmured.  Ed didn’t go back to the truck; he walked around near us watching us.  I didn’t say anything but Andrea did.  I wished she had just let it go.

“Problem, Ed?”  She’d asked.

“Nothin’ that concerns you.”  He informed Andrea.  “And you ought to focus on your work.  This ain’t no comedy club.”  He informed me.  Andrea huffed at that.  I chose to ignore it and continue scrubbing hoping he’d go back to the truck. 

After a little while of silence Ed just standing there watching, Andrea had had enough.  So with a wet piece of wadded up shirt she stood and faced him.  “Ed, tell you what—you don’t like how your laundry is done, you are welcome to pitch in and do it yourself.  Here.”  She tossed him the shirt.  He threw it back in her face harder. “Oh!”  She said in shocked surprise as she grabbed the shirt.

“Ain’t my job, missy.”  He told her flicking some ashes from his cigarette

“Andrea don’t.”   Amy told her as she stood behind her watching.  I could see what was going on but back then I wasn’t brave enough to fight my husband, that’s not how I’d been raised.

“What is your job, Ed?”  Andrea asked; then went on.  “Sitting on your ass smoking cigarettes?”

“Well, it sure as hell ain’t listening to some uppity smart-mouthed bitch.”  He told her.  “Tell you what—come one.  Let’s go.”  He ordered me. 

I started to get up as Andrea continued to confront him.  “I don’t think she needs to go anywhere with you, Ed.”

“And I say it’s none of your business come on now.”  He gestured to me.  “You heard me.”

“Carol.”  Andrea put her hand on my shoulder.

“Andrea, please it doesn’t matter.”   I told her.

“Hey, don’t think I won’t knock you on your ass.”  Ed informed Andrea.  She looked at him as he continued.  “Just ‘cause you’re some college-educated cooze, all right.”  Andrea gasped at that.  He pointed at me.  “Now you come on now or you gonna regret it later.”

Jacqui chimed in then.  “So she can show up with fresh bruises later, Ed?  Yeah, we’ve seen them.”  She yelled at him, he just laughed.

Ed started to get mad then, Shane had been nearby he’d heard Ed as he raised his voice.  “Stay out of this now come on!  You know what?   This ain’t none of y’all’s business.  You don’t want to keep prodding the bull here, okay?  Now I am _done talking_.  Come on.”  He finally had enough and grabbed me as he started pulling me away from them.

“No no.  Carol, you don’t have—“Andrea said as she tried to interfere I wasn’t very good at speaking up then, I’ve gotten much better now.

He lost his temper as he started to yell at us, at me.  “You don’t tell me what!  I tell you what!”  Andrea was trying to get his arm off of me.  He finally had enough as he slapped me, hard across the face.  Andrea started pushing at him and screaming at him.  Jacqui put her arm on him to push him away from us.  Amy had grabbed me trying to get me away from him, he wouldn’t let go of my arm.  Finally I got lose and with Amy holding me I held my face as I tried not to cry, I could taste blood on my lip.

He kept telling me to come to him as he was trying to reach me and then Shane showed up.  He grabbed Ed and pulled him away from us, I heard him telling Shane.  “Get off me.”  I turned back and saw Shane throw him to the ground.

“Ed.”  I called

“It’s okay, it’s okay.”  Amy told me.

“No.”  I cried.  Andrea put her hand on my back comfortingly as Shane started beating my husband.

“It’s okay.”  Andrea said.  He just kept hitting him and hitting him.

After several moments of this we tried to get him to stop.   “Shane, stop, just stop Shane.”  We all yelled.  He’d end up beating him to death I never wanted my husband to die, just to stop hitting me.

I cried out.  “Stop it!”  He must’ve gotten tired and figured Ed had had enough and stopped. 

I heard him as he spoke to Ed.  “You put your hands on your wife, your little girl or anybody else in this camp one more time; I will not stop next time.  Do you hear me?”  He’d grabbed Ed’s bruised and bloodied face in his hand as he asked him that question making sure he was paying attention.  “Do you hear me?”  He asked again.

“Yes.”  Ed slurred threw his swollen lips.

“I’ll beat you to death Ed.”  Shane threated.  He hit him one last time to get his point across.  I was distraught as I cried.

“Ed!”  I cried for him.  Ed was crying, Shane got in one last kick as he stood up and left.  I went to him then crying telling him I was sorry, if I’d just gone with him it wouldn’t have happened.  I don’t know why I wasn’t pleased he got a taste of his own medicine.  I just cried and held him in my arms.  I loved him, I still love him.

* * *

 

Freedom part 1

 Merle POV

 

That night I slept off and on, my head felt baked, I knew I was sun burnt and thirsty as hell.  As morning came I knew I had to get out of here one way or another so with the walkers trying to get at me, I went back to useing my belt to try and get that saw.   After a few hours of swinging taking breaks in between just like yesterday, I finally got some luck.  My belt buckle catched the handle of the saw and I pulled it to me, I was still lying under those pipes I was hooked to.

I grabbed the handle of the saw as soon as I could reach it.  I sat up and placed it in my lap, I looked at the cuffs.  There’s no way this hand saw would cut the chain keeping me captive here.  So I looped my belt around my cuffed arm pulling it tight then taking the end of the belt and putting it between my teeth to keep me from breaking my teeth as I bit down hard

I grabbed the saw with my free hand holding it in a firm grip.  I placed the saw at the wrist right above the cuff.  I breathed in through my nose, deep, let out with a hiss through my teeth and started cutting, I grit my teeth screaming in the back of my throat as the agony hit me.  I didn’t stop, if I stopped now I’d bleed out and I knew I’d die.  As I sawed I thought of what I’d do to those sons of bitches that left me, the Pig and the Nigger.

It took a good five minutes the hard part had been when I got to the bone.  I didn’t stop though; I had gotten dizzy from the pain as I finally severed the last of the muscle from my arm.  Once free, I had to find another way down because those walkers were blocking the only door outta here.  I kept the belt tight to keep the bleeding under control.  All I knew at that point in time was that I got my freedom back.


	4. Missing Scenes for Vatos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Don't own just having fun with them.

Missing Scenes for Episode 4

More for Dad

Andrea's POV

 

A few hours after the guys had left we knew that dinner would need to get cooking so we talked to Dale; he had a canoe named ‘We-no-nah’ and fishing gear both things Amy and I would need if we were to fish our dinner.  It was something Dad taught us to do as kids, though I wasn’t around most of Amy’s life, being born so far apart does that.  She’d gotten an umbrella to help shield her from the sun some as well.  After about half an hour out on the boat sitting quietly waiting for the fish to bite, I looked at Amy then her fishing line with this look on my face, she noticed it. 

“What?”  She asked.

“Nothing.”  I told her.

“It’s not nothing, it’s always something.”

I sighed.  “Didn’t dad teach you to tie nail knots?”

“Why would he do that?  He only ever used a fisherman’s knot.”  She looked at me and saw my confused expression.  “One knot.”

“No, he didn’t.  No, he tied at least three.”

“Clinch knots?  No way.”

“Fine, I’m making it up.”  I relented with a wave of my hand before looking at my line.  After a few seconds Amy reeling in just slightly I asked another question.  “Did dad teach you mostly dry lures?”

“Yeah.  You?” 

That couldn’t be right I thought.  “Wet.”

“You’re kidding.”  She was now giving me a confused look.  “But he was always so adamant.  I mean you know dad on the fishing thing.”

“Gee, you think?  I only spent my entire childhood with my ass in a boat.  But in my day it was all about getting the hook seated.  We were fishing for the dinner table.”  I explained.

“Not us.  We always threw them back, always.”

“I guess he changed things up.”

“But that’d be like changing his religion or something.”

“People change.  It’s not his fault we were born twelve years apart.”

“No.”  I looked at her waiting for her to continue.  “No, because the minute you went off to college it was my ass in that boat and he taught me dry lures from day one.  This was not behavior developed over time.”  She shook her head as she stated that last part.

A thought came to me as I started to smile and tears surfaced.  “You think he did it for us?”  I asked.

“Because he knew we were so different.”  There were tears in her voice.  Then she laughed before going on.  “He knew that you needed to catch the fish and I needed to throw them back.”

I inhaled deeply trying to keep the tears at bay.  “All right, remember his rule: no crying in the boat, it scares the fish.”  I told her.

It didn’t stop us though as she sniffled before speaking.  “Mom and dad—I mean, maybe Florida wasn’t hit so bad.  Maybe it’s better there.  Do you think?”  I looked at her; she needed hope something to hold onto, to keep going.

I didn’t say anything until there was a pull on her line.  “I think you have a bite.  Even with the wrong knots.”

We rubbed the tears out of our eyes.  “Oh God.”  She sighed.   “So much for the no crying rule.”

“I think that was more for dad than the fish.”  I told her.  She nodded her head in agreement.

* * *

 

Jim?

Dale's POV

 

I was on my R.V keeping watch, I saw the girls in my canoe with the binoculars they were safe.  Then I turned and looked again.  I saw Jim past some trees on one of the barren hills covered in weeds and grass, he was digging, it was odd.   I got off my R.V and with my rifle on my back headed to Jim, see if I could find out what was wrong with him and why he was digging all of a sudden.

I saw these holes at least three and he was digging a fourth that I could see.  “Jim?  You okay?”  I asked confused.  “You keep this up, you’re gonna keel over out here.”  I’d thought to grab my blue canteen, so I held it out as I said.  “Drink some water at least.”  He looked at me that was it; then went back to digging.  He didn’t say anything, or do anything but dig.  After several seconds I decided to leave him to it and go talk to Shane and the rest. 

* * *

 

Food and Trouble

Amy's POV

 

“Oh, baby will you look at that?  Hey check it out.”  Morales laughed as he noticed me and Andrea back with dinner.  Andrea handed the chain, with dozens of fish on it, to Morales.  “Ladies because of you my children will eat tonight.  Thank you.”  Lori clapped.

“Thank Dale.  It’s his canoe and gear.”  Andrea said.

“Mom look, look at all the fish.”  Carl said.

Morales playfully swung the fish at Lori, she backed away.  “Thank you.”  She said chuckling.

“Whoa.”   Carl said poking one of the fish.

“Yeah, whoa.  Where did you two learn to do that?”  Lori asked.

“Our dad.”  I said taking a drink of water.

“Can you teach me how to do that?”  Carl asked.

“Sure, I’ll teach you all about nail knots and stuff.”  I glanced at Andrea our eyes meeting.  “If that’s okay.”  I asked Lori.

“You won’t catch me arguing.”

“Hey, Dale.  When’s the last time you oiled those line reels?  They are a disgrace.”  Andrea told Dale jokingly as he stopped in the middle of us.

There was a troubled expression on Dales face as he spoke.  “I, uh—I don’t want to alarm anyone, but we may have a bit of a problem.”  Shane stood up and walked over as Dale turned and pointed to where Jim was digging.  We all looked, he explained the situation then we all headed to where Jim was still digging and see if we could get him to stop and rest before he kills himself.

* * *

 

Preferred the Dark

 Glenn POV

 

My plan will work, I thought as we got to the alley for the bag of guns; I glanced at Daryl as we got to the chain link fence.   Daryl complemented me, in his own way.  “You got balls for a Chinaman.”

“I’m Korean.”  It wouldn’t be the first time I’d corrected him, or the last.

“Whatever.”  He said before I headed out to get the bag.  I rushed trying not to make too much noise, I passed a car with a walker in it and down the street.  She heard me or smelt me as I stopped at the car and she responded.  I stopped behind a different car as a few walkers passed me.  I jumped over a pillow like thing piled high that the army people hid behind while fighting the walkers, I tried not to think about the walkers headed for me as I stood up and ran to the tank.

I finally grabbed the bag of guns, and then I headed back to Daryl, but I turned and grabbed Rick’s hat for him as well, I mean why not I was there.  Then I ran back to the alley where Daryl was, bypassing all these geeks along the way.  I got to the alley and froze, there were two guys beating on Daryl.  My mind freaked I couldn’t move, I couldn’t speak or do anything to stop it.

They noticed me.  “That’s it, that’s the bag, vato.”  One of the guys said as they ran at me.  I turned and ran back but they were faster as they grabbed me, the same guy telling the other.  “Take it! Take it!” He spoke of the bag.

They pushed me down and the other guy hit me with a bat.  Daryl shot the other guy with an arrow as I tried to get up.  The bat guy grabbed me from behind holding me in place with his bat.  “Get off me! Get off me!”  I screamed.

A car pulled up then, they were dragging me out of the alley; I looked at Daryl.  He had this look in his eyes, like he was pissed but underlying that was something I’d never seen in his eyes before, fear.  “Daryl! Daryl! Daryl!”  He was getting up as I was pushed into the car the guy who’d had the arrow in his ass on one side while bat guy was on the other; they both had my arms keeping me from going anywhere.  “Daryl!”  I screamed again trying to get out, I looked out the window and saw him as we drove away he’d ran to the fence and was screaming at them.

It wasn’t long before the car pulled up to a building with big red steel doors, bat guy as I’ve named him until I got a name.  He grabbed me and yanked me out.  The doors opened and a black man exited.  “What happened?”  He asked when he noticed me.

The other guy got out then started to explain.  “We were attacked by a redneck puto man, he beat on Miguel so we took his friend.”

“Glenn, you ass.”  I told ‘em.  They dragged me into this warehouse I guessed, one of his men pulled out a chair they pushed me down onto and he kept his hands on my shoulders so I couldn’t get up.  I was starting to feel sick again.

“Okay Glenn, where’s my bag of guns.”  Black guy asked as the doors were closed behind him.

“G they have it, it got left with Miguel.”

“Relax Felipe.”  G said to the bald dude Daryl shot.  “Felipe what happened to you?”  He asked as he noticed the way Felipe had his hand on his ass.

“Redneck shot me with this.”  He showed him the arrow he’d taken out.  G took it then turned to me as my hands were being tied behind my back.

“Give me one good reason not to stick this arrow in you.”  G asked me.

“My friends will come for me.  They’ll make a trade your friend for me.”  I told him, I sounded more confident then I felt.

“Is that a fact, very well, we’ll wait and see now won’t we.  Name’s Guillermo, you look a little green, are you sick?”

“Getting there.”

“Jorge get a bucket.”  Bat guy moved from me after he’d secured my hands and came back a few minutes later with a bucket.  He handed it to Guillermo who stuck it under my face, that was all the prompting my stomach needed as I threw up again.

Once I was finished they took the bucket away to dump the contents.  Another guy ran in from the roof.  “Just spotted some guys coming they have Miguel.”  He told Guillermo.

Guillermo took some duct tape off a cart ripped off a piece and put it on my mouth.  “Take him to the roof, wait for my call.”  He ordered two of his guys, one of the guys grabbed my arms and the back of my neck leading me away; the other guy stopped and grabbed a tan bag which he placed over my head before going to the roof.  Where we waited, my heart was pounding, I was sweating and shaking and terrified of what they were going to do.

“Oye.” Guillermo called out several minutes later, they dragged me to the edge and took off the bag, once my eyes adjusted I looked down at Daryl and Rick, with that guy Miguel just standing there watching me.  I was scared to say the least as I saw how far up we were, and then the guy holding me shook me closer to the edge, if tape hadn’t been on my mouth the whimper I made would’ve come out as Daryl’s name.

After a couple more minutes I was pulled back to go inside where the red doors were being closed, the tape was taken off and my hands were freed.  “Felipe take him; find out what he’s got and if it’s contagious.  And get your ass bandaged.”  Guillermo ordered him as he grabbed my arm and headed out the back of the building.

There was another building that he took me to that looked like an old folk’s home, or nursing home either way, there were old, sick or dying as Felipe led me to a room that had a medical bed and stuff like a stethoscope.  “Sit.”  He said pointing to the bed, I sat.

 “What are your symptoms?”  He asked as he grabbed a blood pressure cuff and put it on my arm.

“I’ve been throwing up since yesterday morning, and I’ve been getting dizzy, light headed, and nauseous all the time.”  I explained.  He took my blood pressure, then temperature, listened to my heart beat with the statoscope and listened to my lungs and stomach.

He paused then.  “That can’t be right.”  He listened again.  “Lie on your back and lift your shirt.” He ordered.

I did as instructed; he placed his palm on my abdomen and pushed in a few places.  “Tell me if something hurts.”  I didn’t speak, it didn’t hurt.  “Okay, go pee in this.”  He handed me a specimen cup, I took it and went to the bathroom.  When I came back he put a stick in it and waited a few minutes before looking at it.  “No infections, he checked the box with instructions on what the colors mean.

He huffed a laugh. “That’s impossible, I’ll be damned.”

“What, what is it?”  I asked.

“Nothing you’re not sick.”  He threw the stick away and dumped the contents of the cup in a sink before washing his hands.  “If you go to the dining area you’ll get some food.”  He told me.

 “Thanks.”  I left going to the dining area, I was more confused about my condition then before he’d checked me out.  I noticed a lot of older people, a Mr. Gilbert invited me to sit with him he was friendly.

“You’re much to skinny.”  He told me as I sat at the table across from him, one of the women there that were helping gave me a tray of food, it didn’t have much taste to it but it was better than the nothing I’d had all day.

A few of the elders sat at the table and talked, I’d introduced myself, after we finished eating Mr. Gilbert invited me to his room to show me some pictures of his family when he started to have an asthma attack, I helped him sit as they tried to find his medicine with no luck.  After several minutes one of the elderly women who they call Abuela left to get help from the other building where Guillermo and his guys were waiting for Rick, Daryl and T-Dog.

It was a little while after that when they showed up, Felipe took care of Mr. Gilbert and I was glad to see Daryl, I wish I’d pushed Felipe a little harder for why he laughed.  What was wrong with me, he knew, he heard a heartbeat, I’m pretty sure the stick came up positive I just didn’t have the guts to ask, I preferred to be in the dark.

* * *

  
Freedom Part 2

 Merle's POV

 

I was bleeding from my severed arm, if I didn’t do somethin’ quick I’d die.  So I checked the roof for another exit and found a second door, but before I opened it I ran back to the tool’s and grabbed a nice heavy wrench.  Then I opened the door and headed down the stairs passing by all these offices and other rooms.

As I walked into a room though there were two Geeks who decided to attack me, it was the dumbest thing they did as I took up my wrench and bashed those fuckers’ heads in.  I dropped the wrench as I saw a lab type area.  There was a burner and a flat iron pad that would be perfect for what I needed.

I found some towels in the cabinets and used that to sop up some of the blood, then I took up the belt again putting it between my teeth; I turned on one of the burners grabbed the iron pad and placed it on the burner, using one of the towels after a minute or so I picked up the iron pad and with a muffled scream pressed it into my stump.  A wave of dizziness came over me and I let the pad go it fell on the counter there; I grabbed the wall for support, the belt slipped off as well, I left it there as I continued forward.

There was a window, so taking the towel wrapping it around my stump I hit the window smashing it out.  Then I climbed out onto the fire escape and down the ladder I had no idea that my little brother had just arrived to my rescue.

I walked for a while killing walkers left and right as I went, staying hidden, until a few hours later I walked along some tracks getting out of the city and there was a delivery truck with keys just waiting to be taken.  I didn’t know that it had belonged to Daryl and those fuckers that left me on that roof; I had some other things on my mind at the moment.  I got in started it up and drove off, I was light headed and confused, I went in the wrong direction, instead of going towards the camp and where I knew my brother was at the time I went in the other direction.

I drove well into the night, until it ran out of gas, then I walked.  For several miles I walked, I was weak and hungry, then pain hit me in my arm I grabbed it and screamed as I saw fingers suddenly emerge from what had been a stump.  I passed out.

When I came too I was in a town called Woodbury, I looked at my stump and saw a fully grown hand in its place, I’d been out a couple of days, I’d came to ever so often, but they’d had to sedate me as the pain of my hand growing back was to much for me to take.

The governor came to me then and asked me if I wanted to stay and help him and his men secure this town while a doctor/scientist named Milton figured out how I grew my hand back.  In return he’d help me find my brother, I said yes.

A/N:  That’s the last you’ll hear from Merle until I start on season three.

* * *

 

Dreams

 Jim's POV

 

I was just digging minding my own business when the group walked up the hill, where I was, I hadn’t talked to Dale when he’d come up earlier I hadn’t wanted to, I didn’t know how to explain and I couldn’t stop either.  There was just something, last night, I had a nightmare of horrible things, but this morning as it got hot I ended up getting a little on the sun exhausted side I just had to dig.

With the shovel I pounded the earth to soften the dirt before I dug in and threw the dirt to the side.  “Hey, Jim.”  Shane addressed me as I worked.  “Jim, why don’t you hold up, all right?” Shane asked of me, I couldn’t do that; I had to get these holes dug for what I’d seen last night.  “Just give me a second here please.”

I finally stopped with the shovel in the dirt, I looked at him to see most of camp behind him, Dale right next to Shane, and Lori slightly behind Dale to the right of him.  “What do you want?”  I asked.

“We’re all just a little concerned, that’s all.”  Shane explained.

“Dale says you’ve been out here for hours.”  Morals behind Shane and next to Andrea said.

“So?”  What business was it of theirs what I did with my time.

“So why are you digging?”   Shane asked.  “Are you heading to China, Jim?”  Shane smiled at that idea trying to lighten to tension.

“What does it matter?  I’m not hurting anyone.”  I said before picking up my shovel again and continued digging.

“Yeah, except maybe yourself.  it’s a hundred degrees today, you can’t keep this up.”  Dale told me.

“Sure I can watch me.”  It had to be done, someone had to do it.

Lori walked up next to Dale then.  “Jim, they’re not gonna say it so I will.  You’re scaring people.  You’re scaring my son and Carol’s daughter.”  She told me.

I looked at Carl and Sophia who were next to Carol staying close to her.  “They got nothing to be scared of.”  I said as I looked at Lori. 

I started gesturing with my free hand as I spoke.  “I mean what the hell, people?  I’m out here by myself why don’t you all just go and leave me the hell alone?”  Shane couldn’t do that as I went back to digging.

“We think that you need to take a break, okay?”  Shane asked.  “Why don’t you go and get yourself in the shade?” He’d walked closer to me as I dug.

“Some food maybe.  I’ll tell you what—maybe in a little bit I’ll come out here.  I’ll help you myself.”  Shane suggested.  “Jim, just tell me what it’s about.  Why don’t you just go ahead and give me that shovel?” Shane asked holding his hand out.

I stuck the shovel in the earth again and looked at him.  “Or what?”  I asked.

“There is no or what.  I’m asking you, I’m coming to you, and I’m asking you, please.  I don’t want to have to take it from you.”

“And if I don’t then what?  Then you’re gonna beat my face in like Ed Peletier aren’t you?  Y’all seen his face, huh?  What’s left of it.”  I leaned in a little closer to Shane holding my shovel closer to my chest.  “See, now that’s what happens when someone crosses you.”

Shane seemed to be trying to keep his cool and calm as he spoke.  “That was different, Jim.”

“You weren’t there.  Ed was out of control he was hurting his wife.”  Amy explained.

I just wanted them to leave me alone as I raised my voice pointing at Shane.  “That is their marriage that is not his.”  Sophia moved to hold her mother then, I didn’t care as I continued.  “He is not judge and jury who voted you king boss, huh?”

“Jim, I’m not here to argue with you, all right?  Just give me the shovel okay?”  He reached for it I moved it out of his reach as I backed up.

“No, no, no.”

“Just give me the—” I pushed him, then took the shovel up and swung it at Shane who ducked. I do remember something from my dream that pissed me off about Shane, I just can’t explain it to anyone, they wouldn’t understand.

“Jim!” Shane called right before he tackled me to the ground.

“You got no right!”  I screamed at him as he tried to get me to calm down.  He turned me on my stomach and started to restrain my hands behind my back.  I screamed again.  “You got no right!”

“Jim, just stop it.  Hey, hey, hey, hey.”

“Don’t.”

“Jim, Jim nobody’s gonna hurt you.  You hear me?  Shh.”  I was panting as I stopped fighting, Shane continued.  “Jim, nobody is gonna hurt you, okay?”

“That’s a lie.”  I said as he started to cuff my hands.  “That’s the biggest lie there is.  I told that to my wife and my two boys.  I said it a hundred times, it didn’t matter.  They came out of nowhere there were dozens of ‘em.  Just pulled ‘em right out of my hands.”  The look on Lori’s face at that confession, shock and pity, I looked at her as I continued.  “You know the only reason I got away was ‘cause the dead were too busy eating my family.”  Shane got me up then and lead me back to camp where he had me sit then took some rope and put it under my arms around my chest tying me to the tree so I couldn’t fight him anymore, then he left me there to cool off.

A couple of hours later, Shane walked up to me with a bucket of water, Dale was with him as Shane knelt in front of me, setting the bucket down.

“Jim, take some water?”  He asked.

“All right.”  I said.

“Yeah?”  Shane asked to make sure.

“All right.” 

Shane grabbed a blue coffee mug and pulled it from the bucket.  “Here you go, bud.”  He said as he placed the mug at my lips. I drank the water.  I watched Lori and Carol with their kids at a makeshift table sitting on buckets and crates so they could color.

As he took the mug away I asked.  “Pour some on my head?”

“Yeah.”   He dipped the mug in the bucket and pulled it back out pouring the contents on my burning skin.  “Cooling you down, huh?”  He asked.

“How long you gonna keep me like this?”  I asked.

“Well, yeah.  Until I don’t think that you’re a danger to yourself or others.”  I nodded as I looked at Lori and Carl he was writing something as she watched; Carol was watching her little girl color.

“Sorry if I scared your boy and your little girl.”  I told them.

Lori looked at me.  “You had sunstroke, nobody’s blaming you.”  She told me.

“You’re not scared now are you?”  I asked the kids.

“No sir.”  Sophia said.

“Your mama’s right sun just cooked my head is all.”  I informed Carl.

“Jim, do you know why you were digging?”  Dale asked me.  I looked at him as I was thinking.  “Can you say?”

“I had a reason.  Don’t remember.”  Dale nodded at that.  “Something I dreamt last night.”  I looked at Carl as I continued.  “Your dad was in it, you were too.  You were worried about him, can’t remember the rest.  You worried about your dad?”  I asked.

He shook his head as he spoke.  “They’re not back yet.”

“We don’t need to talk about that.”  Lori said as she rubbed Carl’s back.

“Your dad’s a police officer, son.  He helps people, probably just came across some folks needing help, that’s all.  That man, he is tough as nails.  I don’t know him well but…I could see it in him.  Am I right?”  I asked looking up at Shane.

“Oh yeah.”  He said on a sigh.

I looked back at Carl.  “There ain’t nothing gonna stop him from getting back here to you and your mom, I promise you that.”

Shane picked up the bucket then.  “All right.  Who wants to help me clean some fish, huh?”  He asked as he walked away from me.”

“Sweet come on, Sophia.”  Carl said as they both got up and ran after Shane.

“Stay with Carol all right?”  Lori told them as Carol got up and followed at a slower pace, Dale went with them too leaving just me and Lori.

She got up and walked over to me, knelt down, I looked at her.  “You keep your boy close.  You don’t ever let him out of your sight.”  I warned her, there had been determination in my voice; she had better believe me on this one.

She stood back up, and then walked away.

“I, uh, built up the rocks all around.  See?  So the flames can be a little higher and have ‘em be hidden.”  Morales explained as Dale, Lori and Amy put out the chairs as it was getting closer to dinner time.  I could see and hear them from where I was tied.

Shane and Carl walked up to me.  “Hey, Jim, how you feeling, man?”  Shane asked as he knelt down to my eye level.

“I’m better, more myself now.”

“I hope you understand the need for this—this timeout.  I’ve got others I’ve got to think about.  I just want to make sure there’s no, uh—there’s no hard feelings.”

“There’s not, I do understand.”

“Okay.”  He chuckled.  “Why don’t you come join in with the rest of us?  Big ol’ fish fry.”

I looked at Carl who nodded, then back to Shane.  “I’d like that very much.”

“Okay.”  Shane undid the rope and took off the cuffs, I walked to the camp fire that was getting started as they were cooking dinner.

* * *

 

Amy’s present

 Andrea's POV

 

I was in the R.V looking through draws and cabinets any place that would have wrapping paper.  Dale came in.  “Wrapping paper, color tissue, anything?”  I asked.

“Seriously?”

“How can you not have any?”

“Had I been informed of the impending apocalypse I’d have stocked up.”

I calmed down and looked at him.  “It’s Amy’s birthday tomorrow.”  I explained as I pulled out the mermaid necklace I’d gotten in Atlanta to show Dale.  “I’ve been marking days on the calendar just to make sure.”  I continued as he put on his glasses then picked up the necklace from my cupped hands.  He smiled.  “You don’t give a gift unwrapped.”

“Deep breath.”  He told me as he handed the necklace back.  “I’m sure I’ll find something here.”  He said as he walked passed me to look, I moved to lean against the built in seats of the R.V and waited until he found something, it only took a few minutes and once it was wrapped we headed out to fix dinner and enjoy the rest of the night.

* * *

 

Attack Ed’s POV

 

I was in the tent I share with my wife and daughter; Sophia was just putting her things down as I was lying on the pallet, my face all bruised from the beaten Shane gave me for disciplining my wife.  “Why don’t you come outside with everybody?”  Carol asked like I wanted to be around those people anyways.

“Hell with them people.”  Was my response.  “Wouldn’t piss on them if their heads were on fire.”  Sophia got up then to go outside, I grabbed her arm.  “Hey.  Why don’t’ you stay here?  Keep your daddy company.”  I just wanted to hold her for a little while; she was looking more like her mama every day.

“Ed, she wants to join in.”  Carol took her free hand and led her outside.  “Come on.”  She told her as they left

“Fine hell with the both of you.”  I shouted at them as they left for the camp fire.  “Ain’t no need to be bothering me no more the rest of the night.”  I told ‘em.

I was resting; my eyes closed trying to sleep when I heard rustling outside the tent, it’d been hours since Carol and Sophia left to be with those people.  “Thought I told y’all to leave me the hell alone, didn’t I?”  I asked as someone was scratching on the tent flap.

Whoever it was didn’t stop that pissed me off.  “Hey!”  I shouted at them as I got up and opened the flap.  “What’d I say?”  I asked before I realized it was a walker bitch who was growling at me.  I was shocked to say the least as I gasped right before her and many others attacked me, ripping and eating as I screamed and gasped my last.

* * *

 

Attack Carl’s POV

 

We talked and ate and laughed and were having a good time with everyone.  “Pass the fish, please.”  Sophia asked her mom.

“Here you go.”   Carol said as she gave her another plate of fish.

“Man oh man that’s good.”  Shane said.  “I miss this.”

“I’ve got to ask you man, it’s been driving me crazy.”  Morales said as he addressed Dale.

“What?”  Dale asked.

“That watch.”  Morales pointed, Dale looked at the watch on his wrist.

“What’s wrong with my watch?”  He asked as he fiddled with it.

“I see you every day, the same time, winding that thing like a village priest saying mass.”

“I’ve wondered this myself.”  Jacqui said as she dug her fork into some more fish.

“I’m missing the point.”  Dale asked arms open in confusion to the question being asked.

“Unless I’ve misread the sings, the world seems to have come to an end.”  Jacqui said.  “At least hit a speed bump for a good long while.”

“But there’s you every day winding that stupid watch.”  Morales said.

“Time—it’s important to keep track, isn’t it?  The days at least.  Don’t you think, Andrea?”  He asked her waving his hand in her direction waiting for an answer.  “Back me up here.”  She didn’t say anything as she took a drink of her beer.

He continued after a few seconds.  “I like—I like what, um, a father said to son when he gave him a watch that had been handed down through generations.  He said, ‘I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire, which will fit your individual needs no better than it did mine or my father’s before me; I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you may forget it for a moment _now and then_ and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it.’ Huh.”  He finished then waited for our response.

“You are so weird.”  Amy said a few moments later.

We all laughed at that.  “It’s not me, it’s Faulkner.  William Faulkner.  Maybe my bad paraphrasing.”  He said.

Amy got up.  “Where are you going?”  Andrea asked concerned.

“I have to pee.”  She told her.  “Jeez you try to be discreet around here—” She grumbled as she left for the R.Vs bathroom we laughed at her grumblings.

Amy called out from the R.V a few minutes after she’d left.  “We’re out of toilet paper?”  I didn’t pay much attention until she suddenly screamed.

I saw Amy being attacked after she screamed.  Other’s joined her as they got up and ran as more walkers came into view.  “Mom!”  I screamed.

“Carl!”  Mom screamed as she grabbed me, holding me close, I wanted Dad right then.

“Lori, get him down!”  Shane screamed as he cocked his shot gun and fired at several walkers.

Mom had her arm around me as I screamed at the death and chaos around me.  “I’m right here.”  She told me.  “Shane, what do we do?”  She asked as she gripped the back of his shirt as he shot at more walkers.

“Shane?”  Dale asked as he fired off a shot.

“Follow me!”  Shane screamed.  “Come on, come on, stay close.”  Shane said as he led us.

“Carol!”  Mom screamed, Carol ran to us she was caring Sophia, Shane was leading us as Dale watched our backs.

“Stay close!”  Shane ordered.  I saw a woman screaming before she was taken down by walkers.  Shane screamed to Morales who was hitting walkers with a bat who were getting too close to his family. “Come on y’all work your way up here!”

“Right in front of you.  Shane!”  Mom screamed warning Shane as he shot the walkers.

“Get to the R.V.!  Go!”  Morales screamed to his family.

“Shane! Shane!”  Mom screamed.

“Stay with me.”  Shane told us.  Mom kept her arm around me the whole time.  “Stay behind me!  Morales, work up here!”  Shane screamed again.

“Get behind me! Come on.” Mom screamed to Carol.

“Let’s go!”  Shane screamed.  I heard one of the other girls screaming in terror.

“Stay with me.”  Mom told me.

“Come on; make your way to the Winnebago!”  Shane called to others.  New gun shots joined the fray, it didn’t last long as the last of the walkers were taken out.

“Baby! Carl!”  I heard Dad call for us, I turned and saw him.  “Baby!”  He called again.

“Dad!”  I screamed as I ran for him.

“Carl!”  He hugged me as I cried in his arms; he cried to as he picked me up and walked to mom who was also crying as he hugged her.

After several minutes dad put me down as we watched Andrea cry as her sister died, I cried, I liked Amy, she was going to teach me to fish.  She was going to do lots of things, that was my first lesson, don’t get attached to people; sooner or later you’ll lose them.

* * *

 

Attack Jim’s POV

 

Amy called out from the R.V a few minutes after she’d left to the R.V bathroom “We’re out of toilet paper?”  I suddenly got the feeling of daje vu, I knew something bad was about to happen to Amy, I should’ve done something, but there was nothing I could’ve done.

I saw Amy being attacked after she screamed.  Other’s joined her as they got up and ran as more walkers came into view.  “Mom!”  Carl screamed.

“Carl!”  Lori screamed as she grabbed him.

“Lori, get him down!”  Shane screamed as he cocked his shot gun and fired at several walkers as Carol picked up Sophia and ran.  I picked up a bat and started swinging hitting walkers as they came at us.  I was keeping them from getting to Carol and Sophia as she ran with her little girl in her arms.

Morales had grabbed a bat and was beating on a walker he’d knocked down.

I saw Andrea going for Amy, she was unarmed; I got in front of her as I took my bat and hit the walker that had been attacking Amy.  He fell, I saw Andrea getting up and running to Amy.

I ran to others who were being attacked and hit the walkers, I got surrounded.  By the time I hit them all I’d been covered in blood, it wouldn’t be until morning that I’d find out one of them bit me.  I made my way back as the screaming and gun shots had quitted down, I walked to the rest who were near the R.V.  My bat had broken at some point during the attack.

The rescue party had gotten back with a bag of guns but I didn’t see Merle anywhere.  I guess they hadn’t made it in time.  Amy died in Andrea’s arms; that’s when it came back to me.   “I remember my dream now, why I dug the holes.”  I told ‘em.

* * *

 

Attack Amy’s POV

 

I got up.  “Where are you going?”  Andrea asked concerned.

“I have to pee.”  I told her.  “Jeez you try to be discreet around here—” I grumbled as I left for the R.Vs bathroom they laughed at my grumblings.

I got to the bathroom to find no toilet paper; I walked out standing on one of the steps leading into the R.V and called out.  “We’re out of toilet paper?”

Someone grabbed my arm then came into the light; it was a walker who use to be a man as he bit my arm.  I screamed, and pulled and wished Andrea could’ve stopped him.  I pulled away blood bathing my arm as I stumbled to my knees on the ground.  More showed up.

That same walker that bit my arm grabbed me and bit into my neck.  I screamed louder as he ripped my skin off, the pain is what I remember as I fell to my back and just laid there.

I saw Andrea above me, she was screaming and crying as she put pressure on my neck.  “Oh God!  Oh my God!”  She cried.  I gasped as she begged.  “Help me, oh God I don’t know what to do.  God I don’t know what to do.”  We were both crying.

I ignored most of the screaming and crying and shooting that went on around me, all I cared about was my sister above me one hand putting pressure on my wound the other hand stroked my face.  We were both sobbing.  “Shh, shh, shh.”  She said, trying to calm me down.

“Oh, Amy.”  I gasped and swallowed my lip quivered as she spoke.  “I don’t know what to do, Amy.”  I moved my hand and touched her cheek with the tips of my fingers.  Then I closed my eyes and went to sleep.

* * *

 

Attack Andrea’s POV

 

Amy got up.  “Where are you going?”  I asked concerned.

“I have to pee.”  Amy told me.  “Jeez you try to be discreet around here—” Amy grumbled as she left for the R.Vs bathroom we laughed at her grumblings.  I took a drink of my beer as the laughter died down.

She called out from the R.V a few minutes later “We’re out of toilet paper?”

I heard Amy scream a second after that, when I looked back a guy was tearing into her arm.  I gasped in shock as she pulled away falling to her knees.  More showed up.

“Mom!”  Carl screamed.

“Carl!”  Lori screamed as she grabbed him.  I got up and looked around as more walkers were coming from all sides of camp.

“Lori, get him down!”  Shane shouted as he cocked his shot gun and fired at a walker as Carol picked up Sophia and ran.

I heard Amy scream again, I saw him bite her.  “No!  NO!” I screamed as I ran to her, Jim blocked me as he took a bat to the walker’s head that had a hold of Amy.  Once the walker was down I got up and ran to her.

She had fallen to her back as I got there, kneeling above her.  I was screaming and crying as I tried to put pressure on her neck.  “Oh God!  Oh my God!”  I cried.  She gasped as I begged.  “Help me, oh God I don’t know what to do.  I don’t know what to do.”  We were both crying.

I ignored most of the screaming and crying and shooting that went on around me, all I cared about was my sister dying in my arms as I held the wound with one hand and stroked her face with the other.  We were both sobbing.  “Shh, shh, shh.”  I said, trying to calm us both down.

“Oh, Amy.”  I cried as she gasped and swallowed her lip quivered as I spoke.  “I don’t know what to do, Amy.”  She moved her hand and touched my cheek with the tips of her fingers.  Then she closed her eyes and went to sleep.

“Oh, oh, oh.”  Tears slipped down my face as I cried.  “Oh, Amy.  NO! NO!”  I screamed, crying and shaking her.  “Amy!  Amy! _AMY!_ ”  I wailed for my sister, again and again until my voice went horse.


	5. Missing Scenes to Wildfire

We All Cared

 Lori's POV

 

I walked up to Andrea after Rick left to go contact the man that saved his life, I forget his name now.  I knelt down beside her, she’d been sitting next to Amy for hours now, long after she stopped crying, her tears dried up she just looked broken and numb.  “Andrea.”  I sat on my legs as I interlocked my fingers. “I’m so sorry.”  It was all I could say, there weren’t enough words in the English language for how sorry I was for her lose.

“She’s gone.  You got to let us take her.”  We’d been working all night separating our people from the walkers that took them, and made sure they wouldn’t wake up, Andrea wouldn’t let her go yet.

I leaned in closer to Andrea as she hadn’t moved since I walked up to her.  “We all cared about her and I promise we’ll be as gentle as we can.”  I looked at her as I waited for a response, I got nothing.  So I just stood up and walked away.

* * *

 

All of the Above

 Glenn's POV

 

Daryl had taken a pickaxe and was using it to spike the dead, fresh and old alike, just to make sure.  Then T-Dog and I would go and move them to the pyre, unless it was our people, I couldn’t bring myself to burn them, people we knew, grew close to.  I wanted to cry, I just didn’t have the strength or energy to.

My emotions were scrambled, I wasn’t sure what I was feeling, numb I guess, shocked, scared, angry, sick, confused.  All of the above, I just wished I could be alone with Daryl for five minutes and give in to what I was feeling, I wasn’t even sure if he wanted me close.  He’d been avoiding me most of the night as we built up a fire and started burning the bodies of walkers.

* * *

 

We Don’t Burn Them

 Daryl's POV

 

“Wake up, Jimbo we’ve got some work to do.”  I said as I passed Jim coming back to help them.  I tapped Morales who was trying to pull one of the bodies, a young boy.  I bent down and helped to move him.  “Thanks.”  Morales said.

“What are you guys doing?”  Glenn asked as we were headed for the pyre.  “This is for geeks our people go over there.”  He told us pointing.  For some reason he couldn’t control his emotions at the situation.  I looked at him to see if he was serious, he was.

“What’s the difference?   They’re all infected.”  I told him callously, my indifference made him angry, and sad.

I stood up as he got closer to me.  “Our people go in that row over there.” He told me again, we were just looking at him confused; he lost it as he shouted at us.  “We don’t burn them!”  Tears surfaced in his eyes, I tried not to feel anything at seeing that, it wasn’t working.  “We bury them.  Understand?”  He asked as he swallowed trying to contain his emotions.

I relented as my eyes softened and then bent to move the body again with Morales.  “Our people go in that row over there.”  He pointed and that’s where we took the boy.

“You reap what you sow.” I said before we dropped the boy with the rest of the people. 

“You know what?  Shut up, man.”  Morales told me.

Later when we got a chance to be alone I went to him and apologized.   He forgave me easily and I kissed him for it, he hugged me and cried.  I didn’t ask I just held him, which was the first time I showed the softer side I try so hard to keep hidden from everyone.

* * *

 

Bit

 Jim's POV

 

I went to a body where Jacqui was and bent down to help her when she noticed some blood on my shirt.  “Are you bleeding?”  She asked.

“I just got some on me from the bodies.”  I told her.

I bent down as she stated.  “That blood is fresh were you bit?”

“No.”  I had my hands resting on my bent knees as I said.  “I got scratched during the attack.”  I picked up the head of the body to move it when she stood up.

“You got bit.”

“I’m fine.”  I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince more, her or myself.

“Then show me.”  She hadn’t been convinced, well neither had I.

I looked up at her before standing, I whispered.  “Don’t tell please.”

“A walker got him.”  Jacquie started calling for the others as she walked away.  “A walker bit Jim.”

* * *

 

Adding Guilt

 Dale's POV

 

As the group dispersed, I walked over to Andrea; it was like she was in shock.  She just wouldn’t move, wouldn’t speak, she watched her sister; I had to wonder if maybe she was waiting for her to wake up before she did something.

She glanced my way for just a second.  Andrea and Amy had become like daughters to me in the last several weeks we’ve known each other, I cared about them; I wanted Andrea to know that as I said. “I came to pay my respects.”  She moved slightly so I could.

I slipped my rifle off my shoulder and set it on the ground as I crouched down taking my hat off as well.  I shifted some so I could sit next to her, after a few minutes of silence I spoke.  “Did I ever mention how I lost my wife?”

“Cancer, wasn’t it?”  Andrea asked.

“Yeah.  I dragged her to every doctor, every test.  And after all the surgeries and the chemo’s, she was ready.”  I looked at her; then shifted my eyes away.  “She accepted it, you know?  But I never could.”  I shook my head as I said that.  “And I spent the last few years so angry.  I felt so cheated.”  I paused to swallow.

“Since she passed, you girls were the first people…that I cared anything for.”  She finally looked at me, made eye contact even, before she looked back down at Amy.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the necklace she’d wrapped up in some pink paper I’d found for her.  “This is her birthday?”  I asked.

“Her birthday was always like—like a week-long affair, but I somehow always missed it.  I was away at college or too busy for kid’s parties.”  Andrea explained.  “She’d call all excited.   I always said that I’d make it home and I really always meant to-” She placed her hand on her chest as she continued. “But I never made it past that phone call.”

“I know things are hard enough for you without adding guilt into the mix, huh?”  I asked.

She looked back down and slowly unwrapped Amy’s present.  She picked up and placed it on Amy’s neck, she moved her so she could get the chain clasped then let it go.  I stood up then and let her be.

* * *

 

Nothing Left

 Carol's POV

 

After we’d dispersed, I saw Daryl go to the pile of our people after getting his pickaxe from Shane he started to hit their heads to keep them from waking up.  I walked up to him; he was in front of Ed.  “I’ll do it, he’s my husband.”  I was crying as he handed the axe over to me.  In the coming weeks Daryl and I would come to an understanding about each other, and I’d be there for him and Glenn whenever they needed me.

I lifted the pickaxe and with tears running down my face, I swallowed right before I slammed it into Ed’s head.  I groaned as I lifted it a second time and brought it down, I was angry and hurt thinking of all the things he use to do to me.  I did it again and again and again, crying in anger and sadness until I had nothing left, no strength to lift the axe, I handed it back to Daryl.

* * *

 

I’m Sorry

 Andrea's POV

 

I was just sitting there, holding Amy’s hand; Dale had left a few minutes ago.  I used my other hand to caress her face, when I heard something coming from her, it sounded like a shallow breath; I wasn’t sure.  I slowly bent down my face closer to hear better, I heard and felt Amy’s breaths on my cheek.

I rose then and looked down at her hands as they were twitching.  I moved my hand to cup her face, as her eyes opened.  But they weren’t Amy’s eyes, they glassed over, she might’ve been breathing, and moving, even seeing but there was no real life in her eyes.  The spark that was there, the spark that made her who she was; was gone.

She turned her head in my direction.  “Amy.”  I wanted it to be her, for her not to be dead, I prayed and wished to any God that would listen for my sister not to be dead, to be one of those creatures.  “Amy, I’m sorry.”

She lifted her hand and touched the tips of her fingers on my cheek.  “I’m sorry.”  I told her again.  “For not ever being there.  I always thought there’d be more time.”  She grabbed my hair with her hand and started to get off the ground, I kept my hand on her cheek as she came at me slowly.

Her mouth was open as I moved back some and she followed her hand falling from my hair, she gripped both my shoulders then.   She kept pushing at me but with her lower half still on the ground she didn’t have much strength or leverage to bite me.

“I’m here now, Amy.”  I told her with fresh tears in my eyes and voice.  “I’m here.”  She was growling and groaning to get at me.  “I love you.”  I put my forehead to hers as I placed my pistol at her head right next to her ear and pulled the trigger, she collapsed to the ground again, her hold on my was gone.  I stayed with her, wrapped her gently in a sheet before loading her on the truck and taking her to hill where everyone was being buried.  I didn’t want any help as I buried her, it was my responsibility, I’m the older sister, I just felt so broken inside as I watched Shane and Rick bury her.

* * *

 

Delusional

 Jim's POV

 

While the rest of camp went up to the hill to bury our people I was in the R.V burning up.  I’d taken off my shirt so Lori could bandage my wound before leaving.  I was lying on one of the built in couches that can become a bad, I had a sheet covering me from the waist down, my back was against the wall with my right foot on the couch.  I felt so hot.

“Oh no.  No, no, no, no.”  I spoke to myself trying to breathe and keep calm as I felt sick.  I knew what was happening to me, I’d seen it happen to someone before.  “No, not this, please.”  I begged any God who was listening.  I was dizzy and felt like I was seeing and hearing things.

I closed my eyes and saw a farm house, Shane and Rick were fighting, Shane almost killed Rick but…I couldn’t see that part, except he came back and was shot.  Then a herd stumbled onto the farm and the group got split.  I heard the walkers growls right in my ear I was shaking as the walkers faces kept flashing from what I remembered, every time I blink I’d see one, and then I heard people screaming.  I realized the fever it was making me crazy, and delusional.  Finally as I calmed it stopped and I could get some rest.

* * *

 

Forgiven

 Glenn's POV

 

I was cleaning the blood from my arms and face as I washed up when Daryl walked up to me, my stomach had settled down surprisingly enough after we buried our people, which was a relief as Daryl took my arm and led me away so we wouldn’t be seen or heard and once he deemed it safe he turned to me and kissed me long and deep.  Until we both had to breathe, I’d moved my hands to his waist while his hands were holding my face.

He pulled back and looked me in the eyes.  “I’m sorry, I get it now.”  He said, there had been a look in his eyes as we’d said goodbye on the hill, why I wanted to bury our friends.

“Daryl, I’d forgiven you the moment it was done.”  Daryl couldn’t understand how I never needed to hear him apologize, I understood, I understood him better then most and I never needed anything from him.  Don’t get me wrong I loved hearing it, I loved getting special treatment.  I just never needed to get special treatment.  We made out for several more minutes before he walked off to get the grim and grit off himself as well.

* * *

 

Habit Breaking

Lori's POV

 

I was sitting at the entrance to the R.V after coming back with Jim’s water; Rick was still inside with Jim just watching him.  Shane came up to me then and knelt down, and started to whisper to me.

“I need you to help talk some sense into Rick.”  I stood up and moved away from the door a little further from where Rick was; I didn’t want him to hear our conversation.  “Look this C.D.C. thing, Lori, it’s a mistake.”  I sighed as I shifted from foot to foot.

“So you’re backing him?”  He asked me.

“What else would I do?  He’s my husband.”

“Look, it may be time for you to play the dutiful wife, but you can’t tell me that fixing your marriage is worth putting people’s lives at risk.”  He was angry at me, I could tell from his tone.

“I think folks around here can make up their minds without bringing my marriage into it.  It’s a habit you need to break.”  I told him sternly.

“I guess I’ll just add it to the list of habits that I’m breaking.  Weather I like it or not.”  Rick came out then, Shane looked at him.

* * *

 

I _Loved_ Him

Shane's POV

 

Rick had made me so mad with that comment, they weren’t my family.  He’d managed to put out most of the embers of my anger when we’d heard braches snapping, leveling our shot guns we split up.   He took right while I went left; I walked some and then stopped.  I stared down the barrel of my gun as I looked around; I went in a half circle when I saw Rick through some trees.

It would’ve been so easy to shoot him then, just get rid of my problem then I could be with Lori.  And I wanted to, I was so angry and everything with Lori was so screwed up, I’d never meant to fall in love with her but I did.  I loved her, I wished she was my wife, I’d be a better husband and father then Rick ever was.

After a few minutes I put the barrel down, I couldn’t do it, he was my best friend, we grew up together and in all my years I never once until then ever thought I’d want to kill him.  I loved him like brother, at least I use to.

I turned then and saw Dale; he must’ve stepped on some branches.  There was this look in his eyes; he knew what I’d been thinking of doing.  “Jesus.”  He mumbled as I took deep breaths to compose myself.

I chuckled as I tapped my finger nervously on my gun.  “I know.  Gonna have to start wearing reflective vests our here.   Seriously.”  I told Dale, acting as if I didn’t know until the last minute that it was Rick and not a walker.  He didn’t buy it for a minute.

I looked at Rick and called to him.   “Come on man.”

I dusted my cap off before placing it back on my head as I turned to Dale.  “Come on, man, let’s go.  Nothing out here.”  Then headed back to camp.

* * *

 

My last

 Jim's POV

 

I jerked awake the next morning, I felt like I was on fire, burning up from the inside out.   I wish I understood why I kept dreaming this stuff.  I couldn’t make heads or tails of it _before_ I got bit, it’s all fire, a burn was on fire and Carl got shot.  It feels like it’s out of order somehow, but to tell Rick, it was just a dream wasn’t it.

I swallowed and coughed as I looked out the window, the group was out there talking; I could hear their muffled voices before I collapsed on the couch I was resting on.  They talked for a while before Dale and Glenn got in, Glenn was looking for a map as Dale started the engine, once he found it, he located the C.D.C and sitting in the passenger seat directed Dale where to go.

Jacqui was caring for me, using a rag to cool me down or dry me off either way I was soaked with sweat and finally I grabbed her hand to stop her.  She placed her other hand on top of mine telling me it was going to be okay as she prayed along the way.

For hours they drove, the pain would come in waves, sleeping was off the table as another spike hit.  I groaned as Jacqui wiped my brow, I grit my teeth before crying out in agony.

The radiator hose over heated and Dale had to pull over, I heard him on the C.B telling them he was in trouble. Dale and Glenn left leaving only Jacqui with me.  Several minutes later I told her I couldn’t do it, I was done.  She left to inform them, Rick showed up shortly after that.

I told Rick what I wanted, I made him understand that I was thinking clearly and I wanted to be left behind.  He came back close to an hour later with Shane; they both helped me up and outside, where I was placed on the ground under a tree.

Once settled they came up one by one and said goodbye, Rick offered me a gun but I couldn’t take it, I told him he’d need it, but truth was I was too scared to pull the trigger, I wasn’t even sure I had the strength to pull it.

As Daryl was the last to leave I looked down and saw Jacqui sitting in the R.V the door open as she rubbed the tears off her cheeks, the rest heading for their vehicles.  I looked up at the sun as they started the cars and headed for the C.D.C, it was sunset when I breathed my last.

* * *

 

Mutagen & Growth

 VI's POV

 

He booted me up, my black screen came on with ‘ **Wildfire M8B3417 Active** ’ below that flashed ‘ **Begin Transmission** ’ he pressed the button and started recording.

“Jenner here.  Its day a hundred-ninety-four since Wildfire was declared and sixty-three days since the mutagen abruptly went global.  There’s no clinical progress to report.”  He picked up his note pad and flipped the page, looked at it, then reported what it said.

“Item—I finally got the scrubbers in the first sector shut down to save power.  Wish I could have done it a month ago, but it took me that long to figure it out.  Too bad I never studied engineering.”  He took a sip of his coffee.  “Could have saved a lot of amps.”   

“Item—I’m still not sleeping well.  Can’t seem to keep regular hours, living underground doesn’t help, not knowing if it’s day or night.  I’m just feeling vary off-kilter these days, the new growth hasn’t helped any.”  He pressed my button again and my black screen reappeared.  ‘ **Wildfire MSB3417 Active** ’ below that flashed ‘ **End Transmission** ’ before I went dark.

Several hours later, after a lab incident, he’d changed into fresh clothes he turned me back on and started recorder as he drank some red wine.   “The TS-19 samples are gone; the tragedy of their loss cannot be overstated.   They were our freshest samples by far.”  He downed the wine.

“None of the other samples we gathered even came close.  Those are necrotic, useless dead flesh; I don’t even know why I’m talking to you.”

He leaned in closer to my recorder.  “I bet there isn’t a single son of a bitch out there still listening is there?  Is there?  Fine.”  He stood up before continuing.  “Saves me the embarrassment, I think tomorrow I’m gonna blow my brains out.  I haven’t decided, but tonight, I’m getting drunk.”  He grabbed his empty wine glass, grabbed the bottle of wine he’d brought with him and poured himself another glassful.

“Speaking of which, how far do you think I can chuck this, huh?  Pretty far I bet.”  He looked around at all the empty desks filled with computers and the computer screens on the wall the huge light circle above him.  He turned and threw the empty bottle and watched it fly off through the circle of lights into one of the metal beams on the ceiling shattering.  He threw his hands up.

“Oh, it is out of the stadium!”  He yelled before pushing the button making me go dark.


	6. Missing Scenes for TS-19

Shower Time Lori’s POV

 

There were only three or four showers available so we were taking turns.  After we put our bags down I let Carl go first and while he was in the shower I made up the couch for him and a pallet on the floor for myself and Rick, once Carl was finished he went to the Rec room where Sophia and Carol headed after their showers.   I grabbed some clothes for both myself and my husband, I placed them on the counter with the sink before reaching in and turning the shower to the right temperature, as the shower got warm I undressed.  I hoped that my husband would join me soon as I lifted my head and held my hands under the spray.  It was as close to heaven as I’d gotten in weeks.

I turned and let my head get soaked, there was this grin on my face of pure bliss, and I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to use a shower to wash up with instead of boiled water from a lake.

I was just washing myself with some soap when my husband Rick joined me.  He walked in and wrapped his arms around my waist as he kissed the back of my neck and took some shampoo and ran it through my hair.  I couldn’t stop smiling as I rinsed my head.  Then I turned and ran the bar of soap down his chest, then down his back as I wrapped my arms around him kissing him passionately.ddd

“I love you.”  He whispered in my ear as he got hard, I ran my hands through his hair as he lifted my legs.  I wrapped them around his waist as he pushed me back against the wall and he slid inside me.  I held on as he thrust in me and I moaned and groaned as I kissed him again.

As we got closer to climax I dug my nails into his back as the bar of soap dropped from my hands.  “Rick, oh, God more, harder.”  I begged in panted breaths, he obliged.  It wasn’t long after that we were both crying out in ecstasy.  He stayed in me for several more minutes before he pulled his flaccid dick out.

“I love you.”  He said as he kissed me.

“I love you too.”  I told him before he let me go and I stood on the tiled floor, we found the soap finished washing up, then he went to get another bottle of wine and I went to get a book from the rec room to read before bed.

* * *

 

Shower Time T-Dog’s POV

 

I can’t describe the joy of getting wet under a warm spray from the shower head instead of a pot.  I just soaked it up without washing at first as I laughed while I turned around and leaned against the wall.  It was times like these that I realize how much of the old world I really missed, all the little things like showering every day, I use to hate it, thinking it was just a menial task.  That is until I no longer had the option and I had to go for days with dirt and grime and sweat.

* * *

 

Shower Time Shane’s POV

 

I took a bottle of wine in the shower with me as I started it up and just stood there my hand against the wall as I drank.  I was angry at the situation as I remembered the last several weeks, saving Lori and Carl, thinking I’d lost my best friend Rick.  Getting in a relationship with his widow, against my better judgment, but at the time I just didn’t care we both needed it as we grieved together.

And then he showed back up and had to ruin everything I had going.  Besides the dead trying to eat us I had it all, a good woman who looked to me for protection a boy who saw me as a father and role model, the camp counted on me to give them direction and order.  Then Rick showed up and took it all away.  On top of that my muscles were starting to hurt like hell.  So I drank more, and the more I drank the less I felt emotionally and physically.

* * *

 

Shower Time Andrea’s POV

 

I got in the shower, as I washed up the day hit me, everything I’ve been through the last few months, from the moment I left home with Amy, to getting to Atlanta, the dead trying to eat us.  Finding the camp, going with the scavenger party back to Atlanta, getting trapped in the department store.

Getting out of that hell, getting attacked at camp, Amy dying in my arms, her coming back, and that’s when I broke down and cried as I slid to the floor of the shower the water just falling on me as I sat there with my arms around my knees.  I wasn’t doing anything but feeling the lukewarm water cascading down my body as I felt completely and totally numb to everything going on around me.

I finally had enough sense to turn off the water and get out, I dried off and changed into some comfy sweats and a tee when my stomach had enough and I started throwing up all that I had eaten and drank that night, now I knew how Glenn had been feeling the last few days with all his throwing up.  That’s when Dale showed up.

* * *

 

There’s nothing left

 Dale's POV

 

As I headed to one of the now vacant bathrooms for my shower, I had bath robe on and towel in arm, it was good to be relaxed.  Rick passed me drinking a bottle of wine, his hair was wet so I’m betting he shared a shower with Lori, I looked down the hall and saw Daryl coming out of one of the bathrooms, he walked off to the kitchen to probably get another bottle of wine himself, a few seconds later Glenn came out of the same bathroom, my suspicions for the past few weeks were right, I paid no mind to it as I turned to go into the bathroom when right across from me I heard retching.

I turned and walked slowly to the door as sobs and coughs were coming from them, I was pretty sure from the sounds of the sobs that it was Andrea.  “Andrea?”  I called softly.  She just vomited some more as her reply.  So I walked into the office around the desk to the open bathroom door and at the entrance where I saw Andrea hunched over the commode I placed my towel and toiletries.

I got on my knees next to her hunched form and patted her back as I said.  “That’s it.  That’s it get it out.”  She held her hair out of the way as she emptied what was left of dinner.  As she calmed I continued to reassure her.  “There you go.”

“Oh…God.”  She sighed as she reached for the handle and flushed the commode.  She sat on the floor and backed away until her back was flushed with the wall.  “Oh…everything’s gone.”  Andrea said, I thought she meant the wine.

“It’s always better going down than coming up, huh?”  I asked with a smile trying to make her feel better about getting sick.

“I don’t mean the wine, Dale.  You know, it’s over, there’s nothing left, don’t you see that?”  She asked me.

“Oh, I—I see a—a chance to make a new start.”  I explained.

Andrea laughed at that.  “Oh my God, Dale.  Dale, didn’t you see the look on Jenner’s face?”  I was confused and it showed, she continued.  “Hear what I’m saying.  There’s nothing left.”  She sighed and we sat there for several more minutes before she headed to bed and I went to take that shower.

* * *

 

It’ll Be Okay

 Rick's POV

 

I passed Dale after my shower with Lori, I’d grabbed a bottle of wine before I went to her and was drinking it on the way to the big room where Jenner was, seeing the test results of our blood.  I hoped Glenn’s turned out okay and nothing to serious.

I walked down the ramp to where Jenner was sitting, he turned as he heard my approach, I wasn’t trying to be quite.  “How’s the blood?”  I asked.

“No surprises.”  I couldn’t believe after I found out the truth about us that he really wasn’t surprised about Glenn, I have to wonder if the mutations changed our blood cells in any way.  I doubt I’d ever know the truth about that.

I walked around to his other side and turned to face him.  “I came to thank you.”  I told him.  I decided to go for honest I didn’t have to keep my mask of hope on, with him I could be completely honest, not with the group, I had to keep hope alive in myself so they would.

“You did.”  He told me.  My leg decided to give out as I stumbled and fell on my ass right there against one of the workstations as he called them.  I might’ve been a little drunk at the time I confessed the truth of my thoughts; I got even more drunk afterwards before going to Lori and Carl.

“You all—you all right?”  He asked as I situated myself on the floor.

I looked at him as I spoke.  “You don’t know what it’s like.”  I laughed as I held the bottle of wine in both of my hands between my legs, I continued.  “You don’t know what it’s like out there.  You may think you do but you don’t.”  I scratched my nose and rubbed my eye.  “We’d have died out there…it was only a matter of time.  There’s too many of those things.  My—my boy…my—my wife, I never—I never told ‘em what I really thought.  I never even hinted, just—just kept it in.  Kept it in and kept us moving, you know.  Just kept it in kept us...”  I wasn’t thinking clearing, but it was the truth.

“It’ll all be okay.  It’ll be okay.”  He tried to reassure me.  I sat there for several minutes in silence as I finished off my bottle of wine while he continued to test our blood samples.

* * *

 

We’re safe here

 Lori's POV

 

After my shower Rick went off, said to thank Jenner again I didn’t ask why.  I just headed for the rec room where the kids were playing while Carol was watching ‘em.  I had poured myself another glass of wine before I walked in; I was hoping I could find myself a good book to read.  Something I haven’t had the pleasure of doing long before the apocalypse.

I saw Carl and Sophia playing checkers on the coffee table while Carol was on the sofa reading a book; she turned and looked at me with a smile on her face and laughter in her voice.  I smiled as I walked up to them.  “Any good books?”  I asked her.

“Uh-huh.”  She sounded as she closed her book before continuing.  “Enough to keep us busy for years.  All right, come on kids it’s bedtime.”  Carol said as she started to get up, she grabbed a book from the coffee table along with what she had been reading as she turned to Sophia.  “Come on.”  She said as she and Sophia started walking away.

“Baby, go say your prayers I’m gonna browse a bit.”  I told Carl as I walked to the selves filled with books.

Carol looked back as she spoke to me.  “This is the first night we might actually get some real sleep.”  I couldn’t agree more.

“Hmm.”  I sounded as she addressed Sophia.

“It’s a miracle, isn’t it?”  She tapped Sophia’s nose before they headed to the room they’d picked to sleep in.  Carl followed them out to go to bed on the couch.

I tapped through some books before pulling out one named ‘Reasonable Doubt’ I flipped it over to read what it was about.  I decided against it after a few seconds and placed it back in the shelf.  I miss libraries, I really do.  I picked it up again after a few seconds when a door behind me slammed I turned around and saw Shane standing there, his shirt open with that tattoo Lily on his chest above his left nipple.

I sighed in relief.  “Jesus, you scared me.”  I noticed he had a bottle of wine in his hands just like all the other men of our group, except for Glenn, I think I saw him sharing Daryl’s, which was odd but I didn’t say anything about it, I wasn’t that blind.

“I’m gonna tell you a few things and you’re gonna listen to me.”  He stated.

“Now is not the time.”  I told him as I lifted the wine glass to my lips while I read the back of the book a second time.

He chuckled.  “Come on, when is it ever the time?”  He asked as he walked away from the door he’d slammed just seconds ago.  I decided I’d give this book a try and started to walk past him.

“How can you treat me like this?”  He asked.

“You’re kidding, right?”  I asked.

“No.  Huh-uh.”  He said as he shook his head.

“Because you told me my husband was dead.”  I walked past him toward the door.

“Jesus, Lori.”  He started as he followed me.  “I didn’t lie to you all right?   I didn’t.”  I ignored him; he walked passed me and closed the door blocking my escape as he continued.  “Do you know what it was like there?”  He stood against the door.  “Stop.”  He ordered before explaining how it was.  “Things were falling apart.  They were slaughtering people in the hallways, it was a massacre.  There were walkers everywhere.”

“So you left him?”  I asked.

“Everybody else ran.  There were no doctors there it was just me, he was hooked up to machine’s and I did not know what to do.”  He was raising his voice and using his hands to express how desperate the situation had been.  “I even took my ear and I put it on his chest and I listened for a heartbeat and I did not hear one.  And I-I-I-I—I don’t know why.  Maybe it was gunfire I don’t know what it was, but there was no way he could’ve survived that.  No way.”  He hit the door and threw his hand in the air to express the impossible that Rick managed to pull.

“He did.”  I told him.  He started pushing me against the table as he explained further.

“Yeah, but then I had y’all to think about, didn’t I?  I had you and Carl, and I needed to think about—” He had me pushed up against a table I set my glass and book down and put my hands out to stop him.

“Okay, no, no.”  I tried to interrupt he just continued to talk, or get his point across something.

“I had to get you guys safe to Atlanta.  That’s what I had to do.”  I tried to get past him to the door but he pushed me back again.  “Just stop.”  He told me as he lifted a finger at me.  “If you thought for one second that he was still alive, would you have come?”  He asked, I couldn’t answer that because he knew the answer.  “So I save your life—you and your little boy’s that’s what I did.  Right?”  At this point in time I was scared of Shane, he seemed erratic and not letting me leave was making me nervous.

I just had my mouth open wanting to say something but nothing came out as I shook my head.  “Okay.”  He said.  “And if I could’ve traded places with him I would have.  I would trade places with him right now because—” He was grabbing at me.

“No, no, no, no.”  I repeated over and over as he put his hand on my neck.

“No, no, no, you—I love you, shhh, shhh.”  He tried to shush me as I explained that he was drunk and he doesn’t love me.  “I love you.”  He said again.

“No, you’re drunk.”  I told him as he pushed at me some more.

“And I know there were some things that say that you love me too, because there’s no way that you could’ve been with me the way that you were.”  He tried to rationalize his actions as I grabbed his hand on my face and tried to get him off of me.  Then he tried to kiss me.

“Shane, Shane, Shane!”  I repeated as I pushed at him and he kept touching and kissing, I could smell the wine on his breath.

“Just—stop it.  Listen, you love me.”  Shane said as he kissed me and pushed at me.

“Get your hands off me; get your hands off me.”  I said as his hand was traveling up my gown, I didn’t want this and I knew I wanted him to stop.

“I love you, there’s nobody here.”  Shane said as he grabbed at my panties, I tried to push him away but he was strong I could feel it in his grip as he held my wrist while he kissed me; I knew I’d probably end up with bruises.

“PLEASE! NO!”  I screamed out in terror.  I started crying.

“Stop, Lori, it’s all right just—” I lifted my free hand to his neck and used my nails to scratch him.  He groaned as he backed away from me.  He realized then what he had been about to do, I could see it in his eyes and demeanor as he covered his mouth in horror.  He opened the door then and hit the wall in anger before walking out.

I put my head in my hands as I sobbed and tried to calm myself before going to bed, I didn’t want Carl or Rick to see me like this, they’d ask to many questions, questions I didn’t want to answer.

I went to the bathroom and washed my face, straightened my gown before going to the room, and to the pallet on the floor for me and Rick, Carl was already tucked in bed and on his way to dream land as I crawled in.  It wasn’t long before I heard the door open and Rick close it quietly as he moved about taking his clothes off and turning out the lights before collapsing beside me.

He put his arm around me and turned me so we could be face to face, I was still crying and sniffling, Rick stroked my face and whispered to me.  “We don’t have to be afraid anymore.”  I tried to smile for him but it never made the full journey.  “We’re safe here.  All right?”  He put his arms around me and I felt safe.  He kissed my forehead as I rolled back over and he spooned up next to me.  I sniffled a little longer as he fell asleep; it was a little longer before sleep finally claimed me.

* * *

 

Survive

 Daryl's POV

 

Rick told us to go back to the rooms and relax; then he picked Shane, T-Dog and Glenn to go with him to the basement.  I let him, I just wanted to get drunk and forget that I just found out that due to these mutations I knocked Glenn up, and the group knew it too.  I could see it in their eyes every sideways glance they tried not to give me.  I found myself another bottle of wine sat on the couch and drank as I tried to forget the fact that I didn’t want to be a father.

The one thing I loved most about being gay was the fact I couldn’t get my sex partners accidently pregnant.  So much for that, I sat there and drank, I was getting worked up with the thoughts going round and round in my head, I got to my feet the bottle of wine in my hand; it was almost empty but not quite.  I stopped as I heard Carl in the next room.

“Mom?”  He asked, his mom most be up to something.  “Something wrong?”

“Nothing.  It’s just…the air conditioning stopped.”  I went to the vent in the room I was in and reached up sure enough the air had stopped flowing, damn how’d I not feel that, I asked myself.  I looked at the bottle of wine and realized it must be making my new hyperactive senses dulled.  Let me tell you finding that out gave me a reason not to drink, to never turn out like my old man.

Then the lights turned off.  We started coming out of our rooms as Jenner was walking down the hall pass us.  “Why’s the air off?  And the lights in our room?”  Carol asked.

I poked my head out and asked.  “What’s going on?  Why is everything turned off?”  Jenner grabbed my almost empty bottle from my hand.

“Energy use is being prioritized.”  Jenner explained, we started to follow him as he took a swig of my bottle.

“Air isn’t a priority?  And lights?”  Dale asked.

“It’s not up to me; zone five is shutting itself down.”  Jenner explained.

“Hey!  Hey, what the hell does that mean?”  I asked as he headed for the cat walk to the big room.  I ran up to him.  “Hey, man, I’m talking to you.”  I heard more power shutting down.  “What do you mean it’s shutting itself down?  How can a building do anything?”  I asked, it didn’t make any sense to me, but then again I was just a country hick who barely knew his ABCs.  Okay, so it’s out I can’t read, I sucked at school anyways, it never taught me to survive out there like huntin’ did.

“You’d be surprised.”  Jenner said as Lori went to the edge of the cat walk and called for Rick who was below us.  As we got to the stairs we joined up with the rest of our group, when I saw Glenn, I looked at the bottle still in Jenner’s hand and knew then and there I wasn’t going to be a dead beat dad like my old man, I was going to be there for this kid who ever he or she turned out to be and make sure they learn how to survive just like I did.

* * *

 

Beginning of the Choices

 Andrea's POV

 

As Jenner opened the door and let my friends leave I stood there next to one of the work stations, I didn’t want to live in this world any longer without Amy, or my parents.  I had nothing left and Jenner was right, it’s cruel and dangerous and I’m afraid all the time, I just want my nightmares to end.

“There’s your chance take it.”  Jenner told Rick who’d stayed as the rest were running for the door.

“I’m grateful.”  He told Jenner.

“The day will come when you won’t be.”  He informed Rick.

He took Rick’s hand and then put his hand around his neck as he whispered in his ear.  I couldn’t hear what was said as I watched them from where I stood.  Lori ran back to grab Rick and run with him, T-Dog was leaving with Jacqui when she stopped and told them that she’d given up and was staying, she pushed T-Dog and the rest to leave.  Dale followed her back and saw me as I looked at him.  “I’m staying too.”  I informed him as he’d reached his hand out to me.

“Andrea, _no._ ”  I turned my back on him and sat down against the workstation.  I’d made up my mind, I was staying.

“Just go! Go!”  Dale yelled to the rest.  Jenner looked at me and Jacqui, before Dale ran and knelt in front of me.  “Andrea.  This isn’t what Amy would want for you.”  He tried to reason.

“She’s dead, and you need to leave.”  I informed him, I was done fighting and trying to survive in a world that was filled with nothing but death.

I looked at the clock as it read three minutes and ten seconds.  “Time’s almost up.”  I told him.   He had his hand on my shoulder his other on my knee as he looked at the clock then back at me.  He moved his hand from my shoulder to my face and caressed me.

“Okay.  You win” He said as he looked down before he stood back up.  I thought he was leaving, but that’s not what he did.  He moved to a chair close by and sat down.

“What are you doing?”  I asked he had to get out of here.

“I said okay.”

I shook my head as I spoke.  “Don’t pull this, Dale.”

“I’m not pulling anything.  If you’re staying I stay too.”  I glanced over and saw Jacqui with tears in her eyes as she was watching us.  “He’s right; we know what’s waiting for us out there.  I don’t want to face it alone.”

“Dale, get the hell out.”  I knew what he was doing; I didn’t want him to be here and I told him that.  “I don’t want you here.”

“Too bad.  See, you don’t get to do that, to—to come into somebody’s life, make them care and then just check out.”  There were tears in his eyes and sincerity in his voice.  “I’m staying, the matter is settled.”  I looked at the timer again time was almost up.

I wasn’t going to have Dale’s death on my conscious; he wasn’t going to leave without me so I stood up.  “We don’t have much time.”  I told him, he stood and we headed for the door.

We got to the lobby, our friends weren’t there but a big hole where a window use to be was.  We ran up the stairs and got out the window, Dale was right behind me.  We ran for the vehicles were our friends were waiting.

Rick started blowing on his horn and Lori stuck her head out of the R.V. and screamed.  “Dale, get down! Down!”  Dale pushed me down behind one of the military blockades and covered my body before the building exploded.  Afterwards Lori let us on the R.V. I saw Glenn with Daryl as the door closed and Rick started it up, and then led the convoy away from the fiery crater.  That was just the beginning of the choices we’d have to make.


End file.
